


to Wake a Sleeping Giant

by InfiniteRiver



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Azula & Zuko (Avatar) Have a Good Relationship, Azula (Avatar) Needs a Hug, Background Relationships, Episodic Structure, Family Dynamics, Friendship, Gen, Series Rewrite, multiple POVs, no beta we die like jet, sorry to everyone who was here for the ships, theyre still there just not the Focus yknow?, turns out i have no idea how tags work
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-23
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-13 07:20:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 30,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29647755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InfiniteRiver/pseuds/InfiniteRiver
Summary: In which Kya's sacrifice—dying in place of the last Southern Bender—drives the North to rejoin the conflict consuming the world, and the Avatar is discovered by the wrong pair of wayward siblings.An AU where getting out of the Fire Nation Palace a handful of years early works wonders on the mental health of certain individuals. Basically a series rewrite where the Water Tribe's a lot more active and a little more antagonistic, if that's your cup of tea. Sokka prefers the Ginseng, himself.
Relationships: Aang & Azula (Avatar), Aang & Zuko (Avatar), Aang/Katara (Avatar), Katara & Sokka (Avatar), Sokka/Suki (Avatar)
Comments: 14
Kudos: 31





	1. The Iceberg

**Author's Note:**

> two days late for 16th anniversary woooo  
> this chapter is aka How to Make Fried Ice(berg)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> aka How to Make Fried Ice(berg)

Book 1: Air

Chapter 1: The Iceberg

A small steel ship cut through the frigid Southern ocean. She was manned by a crew of only two, a practice hardly supported by the Fire Nation’s extensive naval regulations. The commander had allowed her to sail regardless. In her half a year at sea so far, she had even proven to be a somewhat useful cog in the great war machine. Mostly for transporting small loads of cargo. Either the loads were too far out of the path of traditional shipping lines, or too much of a waste of resources for the larger freighters to bother.

She was useful, aside from the many, many diversions she took along the way.

This time, the ship had been scheduled to run a crate of standard-issue armor from a manufacturing colony in the Northern Earth Kingdom to the sparsely-manned base on Whaletail Island. It was a recent acquisition of the Fire Nation, part of the ever-evolving war strategy. Not that the crewmen were privy to any of those details.

All her crew had was a destination to go to and a ship to get there on. Not even an overseer, to ensure that she stayed on course.

Which is why she never did.

The younger of her two crewmen was only fourteen. Two years younger than what the papers said. She had a personal fascination with the remnants left behind by the war. It was why she brought the ship along on such detours in the first place.

In some cases, they had to make do with whatever Fire Nation locales existed on their route. Sometimes it was to see the glory of the conquests of the Fire Nation, whether they took the forms of fresh flags hung on foreign soil, or exotic prisons for dissidents, prisoners of war, and traitors to the crown.

They always kept a careful distance from the prisons.

Other times, their detours were to visit the ruins of long-ago battles, where people had fought and died for causes that hadn’t yet come to fruition, decades later. The younger crewmember much preferred the fields of battle. They lay scattered across even the farthest reaches of the world. She insisted, only half-joking, that they all served a purpose to educate them about their homeland.

Their ship had never stopped, scheduled or otherwise, to see the largest island on the archipelago—the island containing the Fire Nation’s capital, and palace, and monarch.

Perhaps it never would.

The younger crewmate’s name had once been Azula. It probably still was, figured her brother, just like his name would always be Zuko. Those names had been given to them by their mother.

In the Navy, five years so far in the service and counting, the papers called them Ilah and Lee. An old family name for her. She’d insisted on maintaining some air of regality. Zuko couldn’t remember where he’d picked up his own alias. Maybe he just liked the sound of it.

There were a million Lees. No one stopped to look at one more for too long.

An iceberg, larger than the others, passed by Zuko’s field of view. They had been drifting farther south for days.

Years and years ago, the Fire Nation had very nearly crushed the Tribes living at the bottom of the world out of existence entirely. Then the Earth Kingdom had proven to be a tougher nut to crack than anticipated. The Fire Nation had to shift its attention elsewhere.

At least, that’s what the history books reported. Zuko didn’t remember very many of the details.

He did remember how the Northern Water Tribe had broken her isolation, opening an entirely new front of the war. That wasn’t ancient history—it had happened within Zuko’s lifetime. Within Zuko’s recent memory, even.

The Southern Tribe was still broken and battered, largely unable to receive aid from her Northern ally. Decades of Fire Nation superiority in the seas had established a certain status quo that would be difficult to overturn in the space of only a few short years.

But the raids were still a thorn in the side of every ship sailing beneath a Fire Nation flag. Azula had taken their flag down long ago, citing it to be more risk than reward. It rested, folded neatly, within a small chest of personal belongings accrued during their time in the Navy. Zuko had nothing from their time before, they’d left too suddenly for that.

They’d never bothered to hang their standard issue poster of Fire Lord Ozai. Long may he reign, and so on and so forth.

Zuko knew they were lucky that their little ship, even free of obvious regalia, hadn’t been accosted yet by a fleet of wooden skiffs, powered by sail instead of steam. They had been very lucky indeed. Azula always was.

Maybe that was why Azula appeared to be so comfortable sailing them straight to the South Pole, in search of some grand ancient battle between the Southern Benders and the Fire Nation. Most of the Southern Waterbenders were gone, Zuko knew. Either hauled away in chains decades ago to die in the darkness of a cell, or killed where they stood.

Whatever Waterbenders were left—if any of them managed to straggle back home after the prison break that crewmen _also_ weren’t supposed to know about—would probably be too weak to pose a significant threat. Especially not a threat to Azula, who was currently dedicating herself to summoning a bolt of lightning.

Zuko had never heard of the technique before. Azula had said it was something that Father had shown to her, once, not long before… before. Five years spanned the gap between then and now.

She had only begun to practice the art in earnest once they’d gained a ship of their own, and the additional privacy that came with it. The ship they had been on before, with an entire crew of other sailors, had been far too crowded. Sometimes there hadn’t even been enough room to practice traditional Firebending in bits and pieces, half-remembered forms and katas. Definitely not enough to start throwing _lightning_ around.

Good thinking, in hindsight, based on the scorch marks that peppered the steel deck of the ship. Some had been there nearly as long as they had been. Others were much fresher. Azula had never gotten injured from a misfired bolt, but she hadn’t been able to cast one successfully, either.

Azula was _mostly_ lucky.

Zuko had considered making fun of her for it. This was the one thing she couldn’t get right on the first try, and he deserved _something_ to lord over her. But he also knew that if he did, her first successful bolt of lightning would be aimed right for him.

As such, Zuko sagely kept his mouth shut, and watched his sister in silence.

The days often passed quietly. Usually the arguing occurred at the very beginning, while they were debating which heritage site to visit on this particular journey. Azula usually won those debates.

Scratch that, Azula always won them.

This was the farthest south they had ever gone, and probably the farthest south they ever would go. The ice was growing thicker around them. Soon it would become impassable. Azula wouldn’t be happy if they had to turn back without even seeing a single weapon strewn in the snow.

The sky darkened, but the shade of the clouds never shifted. Something heavy pressed on Zuko, and he could feel the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. He kept it cut as short as he could, just long enough to tie in a proper top-knot if need be. Right now it was, to keep his hair out of his eyes.

Sparks flew around Azula’s fingers, a much more brilliant white than the typical warm oranges of her Firebending. She circled her arms wide, two fingers outstretched on each hand. Somewhere in the distance, thunder rumbled.

Zuko had seen this all a thousand times before. A thousand times before, something had gone wrong just before she extended her hand to strike. Then there would be an explosion, and one brand-new scorch mark marring the deck of the ship. At least their cargo was belowdecks. And inflammable. It was _Fire Nation_ gear, after all.

This time, though, Azula must have done something different. Her feet shifted slightly, along with her hips and shoulders. Not that Zuko was paying attention or anything. If he tried to summon lightning himself, he would probably just wind up electrocuting himself. Or something else equally painful.

Azula was always luckier than him. Wasn’t she?

She was this time. Her arms extended outward in opposite directions, forming a straight line from fingers to arm to shoulders to arm to fingers. Zuko could practically see the bolts of energy coursing along the path she had given it. For a moment, just before, time stood perfectly still.

Lightning struck an iceberg in the distance.

Azula whirled about, wearing the most genuine smile Zuko had ever seen on her. “Did you see that?” she asked through a gleeful grin.

Zuko nodded. “Very impressive,” he said mildly.

His sister rolled her eyes. “Oh, please,” she scoffed. “It’s deserving of a better reaction than _that_ , Zuz—” Her face shifted when she saw the expression on Zuko’s, who wasn’t even looking at her.

Zuko’s gaze fixed over Azula’s shoulder, on the iceberg she had just struck. The thing had cracked in two like an egg, either side splitting away to splash back into the water. But there was something else _under_ the iceberg.

A great frozen sphere surged up from the ocean, sending a rush of water in every direction. The wave was large enough to rock the ship. Zuko had to clutch onto the railing to stay standing.

Azula didn’t. Lucky her. “Forget the crusty old spears,” she said excitedly. “I’m much more interested in _this_.” She went to the bridge, and steered the ship on a collision course with the second, rounder berg.

As they grew closer, Zuko saw that there was something _inside_. The ice was too frosted over to see any defining features, but Zuko could make out two distinct shadows. One was much, much larger than the other. Neither was moving.

Then Azula was standing back on the deck, feet planted in a familiar form. The familiar rumblings of the deck below them were gone. She had stopped the engine.

“What are you doing?” asked Zuko.

In response, Azula cracked her knuckles. “An encore performance,” she said, and began the process to conjure lightning once again.

Once again, the hair on Zuko’s neck stood on end.

Once again, Azula stretched her arms in a perfect replica of what she had done before.

Once again, lightning danced from the tips of her fingers in a jagged arc across the water.

Once again, lightning struck the iceberg.

This time, the iceberg _hissed_.

Cracks splintered out from where Azula’s bolt had hit true. From within the cracks came a rush of fog, or steam, or something. Zuko didn’t know what it was.

The ship was slowly drifting in when the second berg cracked itself open, too. There was a faint humming in the air, almost too low to be heard. Then there was the giant beam of light piercing the clouds, as pure and brilliant white as Azula’s lightning had been.

Zuko looked at his sister, who only smiled in triumph. Her features were thrown into stark relief by the light, all hard lines and sharp angles.

She reminded him of Father.

Her third successful bolt of lightning would be aimed right for him if he mentioned that aloud.

* * *

Sixteen was the proper age to become a Man of the Tribe, but Sokka just didn’t care anymore.

Sixteen was the age where he could leave the village, and no one could do a thing to stop him. It was the age where he could strike out on his own without violating traditions maintained over generations. He could join one of the other tribes scattered across the northern coasts. He could go wherever the wind decided to take him on the open sea. He could join the war effort.

Sokka of the Southern Water Tribe was only a few months shy of his sixteenth birthday. He couldn’t wait until then.

Dad was out there, and Sokka was going to find him.

He only had a limited amount of time to pull this off, to leave the village before any of the elders caught on and tried to stop him. A ship was there for him in the harbor, and he knew how to sail it. He planned to be gone at dusk. No one should—would—notice he was missing until sunrise the next day.

It was a great plan.

As soon as Katara had left that morning for her training with that old woman Hama, Sokka got to work. He pulled out the collection of sealskin sacks from where he’d been storing them for a few weeks now. His mental checklist was brimming with supplies, from the Absolutely Necessary to the Useful In A Pinch to the Why Not. For every item he stashed away, two new ones appeared in the checklist. Mostly in the Why Not category.

A boat was a pretty big place. He’d find room for it all somewhere.

Time sailed by as he organized, sorted, and re-organized the supplies he had on hand into the sacks. Adequate distribution of weight was key. So was keeping the rations away from the spare weapons—he didn’t want to find his seal jerky shredded by a wayward spearhead after a squall.

A voice called from the entryway. It snapped, “What are you doing?”

Sokka nearly jumped out of his skin. Oh, no. Sokka had been so worried about the elders of the Tribe that he had forgotten about what would happen if his _sister_ found out. It was a mistake that could quickly prove fatal, if he didn’t handle the situation delicately.

“Katara,” he said, turning around slowly, “it’s not what it looks like.”

“Really?” She raised an eyebrow. “Then what is it?”

Sokka turned to a tried-and-true method of redirecting a conversation: changing the subject entirely. “Aren’t you supposed to be with Hama right now?”

“ _Master_ Hama,” Katara corrected, rather snootily, “and I have been taking it a bit easier the past couple of days.”

Something in her expression made Sokka falter. “Why?” he asked, in a softer tone than he had entered the conversation with. Or planned to use in this conversation at all.

Katara’s mouth set into a hard line. Her eyes brimmed with emotion, and Sokka realized.

Mom had only died a week ago. A week ago, six years past.

Dad had left a week after.

That was why Sokka was leaving today, of all days. He _had_ to leave today. And he had gotten so wrapped up in leaving the Tribe that he hadn’t even noticed how Katara was handling the anniversary herself.

Sokka shifted, and made to reach out to his sister. “Katara,” he started, “I—”

But Katara didn’t move towards him for a nice brotherly-slash-sisterly farewell hug. Instead her eyes widened as she looked past Sokka’s shoulder.

“You’re leaving,” she gasped.

Sokka laughed. It sounded fake, even to him. He tried to play it off anyways. “What?” he asked in a higher voice than he’d intended. “I have _no_ idea what you’re—”

Katara stomped past him to one of the sealskin sacks. It was wide open, revealing all the jerky and other dry rations he’d scrounged away to anyone with a functional pair of eyes. She picked up a strip of jerky and waved it in his face. “I _knew_ you were hiding food somewhere! I’ve been smelling it for weeks!”

She barked once, a laugh bordering on hysterical. “I thought I was going crazy,” she muttered.

The situation was growing more perilous by the minute. Sokka was torn between trying to talk her down, or running away in the hopes that he’d escape before she could freeze his boots to the ground. But Katara was getting pretty good at Waterbending, so he might not be able to get very far.

Before he could work on the talking-it-out plan, Katara cut in and said, “You’re not old enough to even _think_ about leaving yet.”

“I’m close enough,” Sokka protested, voice betraying him yet again with another high-pitched crack. “This will just give me a head start.”

Katara’s clenched fists at her sides suddenly relaxed. Years of experience had taught Sokka that it was _not_ a good sign. Off in the distance, he heard the cracking of ice. 

“Where are you going,” asked Katara, tilting her head slightly, “that you need a head start?”

Defeated, Sokka gave up any and all pretenses. “Fine,” he admitted. “I’m going to go find Dad and join the war.”

“I’m coming with you,” Katara said at once.

Sokka dismissed her just as fast. “You’re too young,” he said.

“So are you!” Katara countered. Then she huffed, and added, “And didn’t the other men tell you that you were supposed to be defending the tribe? How can you do that if you’re _leaving_?”

Sokka didn’t really have an answer for that. That hadn’t really been a part of his plan. Mostly because it made him feel guilty whenever he thought about it.

Instead, he turned to the second-best method of redirecting a conversation: turning an accusation back on the accuser. “Well you’ve been learning so much Waterbending with what’s-her-face, you would probably do a _great_ job defending the village all by your lonesome.”

As an afterthought, he added, “Plus, you’re way older than I was when everyone left. I’m just passing the torch to you.”

He shrugged at his sister, who didn’t say anything. She only balled up one hand into a fist. Somewhere far off, Sokka heard another cracking sound.

Katara hadn’t broken any ice in a temper tantrum for years. Not since Hama had returned to the village and started teaching her all about her splishy splashy magic water powers. Maybe Sokka had gone too far this time.

But Katara looked startled too. It quickly slid off her face as she set her jaw, and her eyes bored into Sokka’s very soul. “Either I’m getting on that boat with you,” she said in a low voice, “or that boat is finding its way to the bottom of the ocean. Your choice.”

Sokka shook his head. “My decision is final,” he said, as apologetically as he could.

At first, he’d thought Katara’s glare from before was the iciest she could get. The look she gave him after he rejected her terrible offer could have frozen the sun in its tracks across the sky. Sokka couldn’t help but shiver beneath his sister’s stare.

And then she ran off to tattle on him.

The giant glowing light beam shooting up into the sky from the direction of the ocean stopped her pretty quickly—along with the rest of the village.

* * *

“I think you killed him,” said Zuko, nudging the boy’s body gingerly with his foot.

He was a tiny thing, wearing brightly-colored clothing that was absolutely not fit for the weather. But since he was unresponsive—either unconscious or dead—he wasn’t shivering or doing anything else to react to the cold.

Zuko and Azula were fine with the current temperature, they were Firebenders. But standing in the center of a cracked-open ice ball introduced a certain chill to the air that couldn’t be so easily addressed with the proper breathing technique. Smoke and steam huffed together from Zuko’s exhaled breaths as he had to make a conscious effort to stay warm.

The giant fluffy monster behind the boy was covered in a thick enough layer of fur, Zuko judged, to not have to worry about the cold at all. It, too, wasn’t moving. Either sleeping or dead.

“Oh, please,” Azula scoffed in response to Zuko’s earlier observation. “I did not. That lightning was far too small to kill anything, let alone something like—” she gestured towards the fluffy monster— “ _this_ . If they are dead, it happened long before I did anything to them. Probably thanks to being _frozen in ice_.”

Zuko begged to differ on how much lightning was enough lightning to kill a person. Especially a person as small as this boy. He was thin, and bald, with a blue stripe going down his head. It took Zuko a lot longer than he’d have liked to admit to realize that the stripe was not some strange sort of lightning-bruise. It was a tattoo.

Zuko was clueless on what it meant.

Gently, he rolled the boy onto his back. Just in case the boy was still alive. And if he wasn’t, it was the least he could do. The blue stripe revealed its ending, in the shape of an arrow on his forehead. The boy’s eyes were closed. If he was still breathing, it was too shallow to be perceptible.

Zuko cradled the head in one hand and reached with the other for the side of the neck. It was something he’d seen older sailors do, whenever some crewmate had been overboard for so long he started to turn blue. The problem was that none of them ever explained what they were looking for, specifically. Leaning in, Zuko looked as close as he could for any signs of life.

The boy’s eyes blinked open, mere inches from Zuko’s.

“Wanna go penguin sledding with me?”

Zuko shouted in alarm. He dropped the boy’s head and neck and scrambled backwards. At the very edge of the basin of ice, his hand landed into a pile of freezing snow. Shocked by the sudden cold, Zuko lost his balance, and he fell in the snow up to his elbow. The layer of ice beneath was even more frigid.

The boy sat up, watching the events unfold in their entirety. “Are you okay?” he asked in a small voice.

Muttering curses under his breath, Zuko shook out his arm. “I’m fine,” he spat in the boy’s direction. He wasn’t, actually, his hand was _burning_ from the cold.

“I’m really sorry,” said the boy, “I didn’t mean to scare you like that.”

Zuko huffed. “Like I said,” he repeated, “I’m _fine_.” 

The burning sensation in his hand was quickly fading away to numbness. Before he lost feeling in his fingers entirely, Zuko summoned a small flame in his hand. He could feel the blood coursing through warm almost instantly. Steam rose from his fingertips as the snow evaporated into the air.

“Wow,” gasped the boy, “you’re a Firebender!”

Zuko didn’t say anything. Off to the side, he could see Azula pinch the bridge of her nose and visibly sigh.

The boy continued, “Are you from the Fire Nation?”

“You were saying something about Penguin Sledding,” Azula interjected loudly, in a blatant attempt to derail the conversation.

It wasn’t enough to deter the boy. His wide eyes narrowed, staring intently at Zuko. “You look like my friend Kuzon,” he decided, “so I think you _are_ from the Fire Nation.”

“K-Kuzon?” Zuko stammered, his teeth chattering. His breathing was all out of rhythm now, and a chill was settling in. “Never heard of him.”

The boy stuck out his hand. “Well, my name’s Aang,” he said, grinning widely.

Zuko took it. The boy was surprisingly strong for his size, easily helping to haul Zuko to his feet.

When Zuko and Azula stayed quiet, the boy—Aang—spoke to fill in the silence. Turning around to face Azula and the giant fuzz monster, he said, “And this is—”

He interrupted himself with a cry and rushed over to the beast. Azula stepped deftly out of his way and sidled over to Zuko.

“Told you I didn’t kill him,” she muttered under her breath as the two of them watched Aang try to pry open a single, giant eyelid. Zuko hadn’t noticed it before, but now he was beginning to make out the different features that made the beast an oversized animal. With three legs on the one side, apparently.

The boy gave up on his efforts, and the eye slid shut again. “Appa isn’t usually this sleepy,” he explained, breathing heavily. “He’s my flying bison.”

“Of course,” said Azula, as if everything was suddenly crystal-clear. “This is my flying brother, and over there,” she said, pointing to their ship on the water, “is our flying boat.”

Aang blinked with owlish eyes. A beat passed, and then he broke out into peals of laughter. “You’re funny,” he said between giggles.

“See?” said Azula, turning to her brother. “ _He_ thinks I’m funny.”

Zuko rolled his eyes and crossed his arms.

Azula turned back to Aang, and her tone reverted back to its usual businesslike manner. The manner it took when she was trying to wheedle information out of someone as subtly as possible. “So what do you know about the Fire Nation?” she asked.

The boy Aang scratched his head. He answered slowly, “Well, that’s where my friend Kuzon is from… They have a pretty bad dragon poaching problem… And the Fire Lord is… um… Sozin?”

 _Sozin_. Zuko breathed out a low whistle.

“Isn’t that his name?” asked Aang. Then he muttered, “I was pretty sure that was how you pronounced it…”

“No, Sozin was right,” Azula said. “The problem is, we’re _well_ past him now.”

“Past him?” Aang’s voice was small. “But when did he…” He looked down at the ice beneath his feet, then over at his sleeping flying bison. Zuko thought he could see tears in his eyes when he finally looked back at Azula. He sure _sounded_ ready to cry when he asked, “How long was I in there?”

Azula narrowed her gaze. “Sozin passed about eighty years ago,” she recalled, looking the boy up and down. “But I’d put you at at least a hundred.”

“A hundred years?” the boy whispered. It was just loud enough to carry across the ice to Zuko. Then Aang fell back into a sitting position, staring at his hands. He was remarkably childlike, for someone over a century old.

Zuko knew why Azula had picked that number in particular. When asked, the boy didn’t immediately associate _Fire Nation_ with _war_ . The terms were basically synonymous nowadays. Along with _glorious_ , _superior_ , and lots of other grandiose adjectives.The most likely explanation for Aang’s lack of extravagant language was that he had gone into the ice before the opening offensive, and stayed there for the duration.

Until now.

Neither Azula nor Zuko said anything for a long time. Sailing had taught Zuko the art of patience, on the days where there was nothing but sea for miles and miles and nothing better to do than just be.

Finally, the boy spoke. His voice was thick. “I think I’d like to go penguin sledding now.”

“We’ll go with you,” Azula decided.

Zuko looked at her. “We will?”

“Of course.” Her tone was cheery, but her smile indicated something entirely different was going on. “It’ll be fun.”

* * *

Katara had instantly latched onto the giant light beam shooting into the heavens, claiming that it was a sign from the spirits that she was right and that she should be allowed to come along with Sokka on his trip.

Sokka had disagreed most fervently.

He didn’t know what had happened to cause the light to go off. It definitely didn’t look like a move the Fire Nation could pull off, though. Too much glow, not enough smoke. And fire burned _orange_ , everyone knew that. Therefore, the village was still safe, and it was still safe for him to leave it. At least, that was his perfectly reasonable and rational conclusion.

It was only after Sokka had continued in his refusal to budge that Katara finished her mission to tell on him to Gran Gran. Like they were children.

While waiting for Gran Gran to bring the club of ancestral shame upon his skull, Sokka continued to pack his things. It made sense—if by some miracle Gran Gran did allow him to leave anyways, all of his things would be ready to go before she could change her mind. And if she banned him from leaving, well, he’d have all the time in the world to unpack them. Until he turned sixteen, and left legitimately in a handful of months.

Leaving in complete secrecy was one thing. Leaving directly against the wishes of his family, of his Tribe, was another thing entirely. Dad hadn’t told his own children that he was leaving them until the day itself. It was only fair that Sokka should get to do the same. Right?

When Katara returned to their home, she was alone.

Sokka was surprised, to say the least. He had been more nervous for the arrival of Gran Gran. She could be downright _mean_ when someone deserved a talking-to. And Sokka suspected that she’d feel that he might just maybe _possibly_ deserve one right about now.

Katara was carrying enough sternness for two when she placed her hands on her hips. “Gran Gran said I could go with you,” she said curtly.

Sokka laughed. “You’re lying.”

“No, I’m not!” Katara shifted her foot. Only a brother could tell that all she really wanted to do was stomp it. Again, like a child.

Rolling his eyes, Sokka responded, “And I’m sure your Waterbending teacher has taught you _everything_ you need to know in order to survive out there.”

“ _Master Hama_ says I know plenty,” Katara sniffed. “And if I go with you, I can learn even more from the Northern Waterbenders.”

“You’re only fourteen!” Sokka said. Going back to an old argument was never a good look, but Sokka was running out of options here. His sister was _not_ going into a warzone. Not on his watch.

Katara bristled. “ _You’re_ only fifteen! You’re _still_ not old enough to go on your own!”

Sokka heard the way she added in the ‘on your own.’ Per the traditions of the tribe, neither of them should be allowed to go anywhere at all, even if they were together. They would need an adult to chaperone.

But if Gran Gran was saying they _could_ go together...

“No,” said Sokka. His voice was ice cold, and his decision was final.

Katara screamed through gritted teeth and closed lips. No ice splintered in the distance this time, despite her obvious anger. She glared at him, huffing thick breaths of steam into the air between them.

When she spoke, her voice was barely louder than a whisper. “So you’re just gonna leave me too, huh?”

Something broke in Sokka’s heart. Suddenly, the sister standing in front of him wasn’t the fourteen-year-old who wanted to hitch a ride with her brother out of jealousy. She was the traumatized eight-year-old girl who had seen their mother die. And that same eight-year-old who had watched her father leave of his own volition far too soon after.

Lamely, Sokka said, “You’ll still have Gran Gran.” The words rang hollow the instant he spoke them into existence.

Katara spun on her heel and began to walk away.

Sokka reached out with a gloved hand. “Wait,” he called, before Katara could run off to somewhere he wouldn’t be able to find her.

She stopped.

Taking a deep breath, Sokka regretted all of the life decisions that had brought him to this point, and relented. “Fine,” he said. “You can come with me.”

“Really?” she asked. Sokka could hear the sliver of hope in her voice, even as her head was turned away.

He had made and rescinded a number of final decisions recently, but Sokka knew that this one was going to stick. It just felt right this time. “Yes.”

Katara whirled about and threw herself into her brother’s arms.

“Thank you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> only 2 days late for the 16th anniversary ooof  
> i've had this AU idea in my head for a crazy long time and i'm so happy that it's finally at a place where i feel ready to start posting. i know that 'aang travels with the FN siblings' isn't exactly new, and there are some awesome total War-Flip AUs out there that i highly recommend. however, this one is big time threading the needle. which involves a LOT of character work. ugh azula. i love u babe but youre nuts  
> basic story structure is: 4 books, each 12 chapters each. add one epilogue makes 49. and i am planned out as heck babyyyy  
> i'm posting the first three chapters all in a bunch. hopefully. if im using the site correctly. if chapter 2 isnt up by now i'll be on it as asap as i can. thanks for your patience hope u had fun byeeee


	2. The South Pole

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> aka Two Ships Passing on the Ice

Book 1: Air

Chapter 2: The South Pole

The so-called Flying Bison sure wasn’t flying yet.

The boy—Aang, he said his name was—had climbed on top of the bison’s head, snapped the reins tied to its horns, and called out some sort of command for the beast. Zuko thought the whole thing had definitely  _ looked _ impressive, especially when the bison first leapt into the air.

Then it came back down in a splash of icy seawater that drenched Zuko to the bone.

Steam rolled off his clothes as he dried them from within. And he had  _ just _ gotten warmed up again from his previous incident with the South Pole’s freezing environment. Azula hadn’t gotten splashed, because of course not. The two of them watched the bison swim away from the sun, towards the south. The boy looked and waved from the bison’s back, and Zuko remembered they were supposed to be following.

Restarting their ship and wheeling it about to starboard took so much time that the bison turned into a fluffy iceberg floating in the distance. They were far away when they began to follow in its direction. Well out of earshot of anyone who happened to be listening.

“So what do you think is up with the kid?” asked Zuko, keeping his voice hushed. Just in case.

Azula rolled her eyes and spoke at a normal level. “‘Flying’ bison, plus matching tattoos? An Airbender, probably,” she surmised. “But that light…”

Zuko was still struggling to wrap his head around the first conclusion. Airbenders haven’t been seen in a hundred years. Not since their great-grandfather, Fire Lord Sozin, had, well, killed them all. But the boy  _ had _ said he’d gone into the iceberg during Sozin’s reign. He had probably gotten himself frozen before the rest of his people had died.

Airbending didn’t explain the pillar of light, Azula was right about that. And it  _ definitely _ didn’t explain how he’d survived in an iceberg, a place known to lack any air at all. Icebergs were made of water, which was an entirely different sort of bendable element, which implied...

“The Avatar,” they said together. Zuko’s tone was questioning, Azula’s a statement of fact.

Things just got a lot more complicated than a simple sightseeing detour.

“So what do we do?” asked Zuko, turning to face his sister.

Her gaze was fixed on the swimming bison. “We catch up,” she said, “and we confirm our suspicions.”

“And then?” Zuko didn’t want to think about it, but he knew that Azula already had.

“You want to know if we should bring him back to the Fire Nation. To Father.” Again, not a question.

Since it wasn’t a question, Zuko didn’t say anything.

A long moment of silence passed on the boat, the furry iceberg drawing nearer and growing larger.

Sighing, Azula said, “Hunting the Avatar was Great-Grandfather Sozin’s dream. I don’t think Grandfather wasted too much time thinking about him, and Father definitely hasn’t. I’d suspect there are still some ancient laws on the books about the subject, branding those who don’t comply as traitors, but...”

Zuko thought he understood. “It’s up to us to decide?”

Azula nodded.

Five years in the bottom ranks of the Fire Navy had stripped them of a lot of decision-making power over their own lives. Then the maybe-Avatar is dropped upon them on a silver platter, and Zuko had no idea what to do with it. His final memories of his father were… less than pleasant, but maybe bringing the Avatar back to him would fix their relationship enough, wash away his sins enough, for them to come home.

But was it still his home? Mother was gone, and so was Uncle Iroh, and Cousin Lu Ten was  _ gone _ gone. The only things waiting for him would be Father and Azula. Azula was already here, so that meant all he had to gain was Father.

They were almost upon the boy and the bison when Azula said, “Personally, I’d like to invest a little more time in seeing what the Airbender himself offers up before we go about making final decisions on whether or not to haul him back in chains.”

Zuko thought that was a very good idea.

* * *

The bag Katara already had for her personal belongings was far too small for the journey she was about to take. She was going to need a bag that was much bigger, and much sturdier. So she scrounged around for a fresh sealskin, a whalebone needle, and some sinew in order to make one. Once she collected her supplies, she sat on the floor of her childhood home and went to work.

After her mother had been... they’d very nearly torn down their home to build another. The memories were painful for everyone, but Katara felt it would have been even more painful to abandon them. And once her father had left, and the men of the tribe afterward, they didn’t have much of a choice. This was where she could still pretend she had a family.

There was always Sokka, of course. But he had very nearly left her behind, too, to go and find their dad. Katara knew she was lucky that she’d caught him and convinced him to let her come along. He was right that she was younger than would normally be allowed.

But so was he, and that was so  _ incredibly _ unfair of him to act like his wasn’t worse.

Gran Gran, as the matriarch of the tribe, had given her blessing for them to travel, the two of them together. It still wasn’t exactly  _ traditional _ , but she’d smiled a secret smile and gave her permission anyways. And Master Hama had said she had learned enough to make her ready for such a journey. Sokka wouldn’t be leaving without her, and deep down Katara suspected that he would be grateful for her company.

As if he would ever admit it out loud.

Katara finished one pass of the seam and decided to add an extra row of stitches for extra support. The needle had just punched through the hide when the entrance of her home opened. Behind the curtain was Sokka.

He stopped in the entryway to watch her. “What are you doing?” he asked.

“Making a bigger bag,” said Katara, moving on to the next stitch.

Sokka moved to the back of their shared home. Rummaging noisily through his own things, he told her, “We’re leaving at dusk.”

Winter was coming to the South Pole, meaning that dusk was slowly moving towards the middle of the night. Eventually the sun wouldn’t set at all. Katara wondered why he chose sunset specifically to leave, but decided against asking. It wasn’t worth it. They were going to have to leave at some time or another, and dusk was as good a time as any.

Sokka must have found what he was looking for, because he made his way out of their home clutching something in his gloved hand. Katara cast a glance at his back as he left. Then the curtain shut behind him, and Katara returned to her needlework.

* * *

“Hey!” shouted Aang, when their ship was side by side with the bison, “You guys  _ are _ coming with! Appa and I weren’t too sure.”

Azula smiled, a sickly sweet thing if you knew what to look for. “Of course we are,” she crooned. “We weren’t going to leave you alone down here in the South Pole.”

Zuko knew exactly what his sister was insinuating. There were still Water Tribe settlements down here. If the maybe-Avatar made contact with any of them, they could draw him into the war to fight with them and  _ against _ the Fire Nation. If the maybe-Avatar really  _ was _ the Avatar.

Her interrogation began innocuously. “How old are you, Aang?”

Aang answered, “Twelve.”

“Well then, of  _ course _ we can’t leave you alone. Aren’t you freezing?” Azula asked, voice dripping with false pleasantries.

Aang laughed. “Nope! I have a special breathing technique that keeps the air around me warm.” To demonstrate, he dropped the reins and brought his hands together in front of him. His chest rose and fell in exaggerated breaths.

“Air?” said Azula. Even Zuko knew that his sister was laying it on thick. “Would you so happen to be an Airbender?”

“That I am,” said the boy. “Aang of the Southern Air Temple, at your service.”

The problem with that statement was that no one lived at the Southern Air Temple. No one had, for the past hundred years. Because all of the other Airbenders were dead.

Apparently this kid hadn’t gotten the memo.

Azula continued fishing for information. “The last Avatar was an Airbender,” she said, “ _ and _ no one has seen him in, say… a hundred years.” She paused, and silence hung thick in the air. Then she asked, very pointedly, “Did you know him?”

Aang froze in place. He laughed again, but it sounded far more strained than before. “The Avatar?” he stammered, “Uh… never heard of him. I mean, I heard  _ of _ him, he’s the Avatar, but…”

Zuko opened his mouth to confront him about his obvious lie. Before he could say a word, something hard slammed into his instep. Azula had stomped on his foot.

“Ow!” Zuko shouted, turning on his sister. “What was that f—” He shut up as soon as he realized.

Azula knew he was lying. Zuko knew he was lying. Aang definitely knew that he was lying, but maybe he didn’t know that  _ they  _ knew. For some reason, he didn’t want people knowing he was the Avatar. Why that was, Zuko had no idea. Did he somehow know about Sozin’s bounty? Maybe Azula would figure that out too in her next question.

But she didn’t have the time to ask it. Aang the not-Avatar perked up, and a grin crept across his face. “We’re almost there,” he crowed. “I’m so excited, aren’t you?”

“Thrilled to bits,” muttered Zuko under his breath.

The Not-Avatar laughed again, a genuine one. At that moment, it struck Zuko that this really was a kid, not a day older than his twelve years. Just a little older than Zuko had been when he’d left, at far too young an age himself.

For a century, the Fire Nation had considered the Avatar to be Enemy Number One. He didn’t seem all too eager to bring destruction raining down upon the homeland, though. The only thing he really seemed enthusiastic to do was go penguin sledding with some false friends. How dangerous could he really be?

The first seed of doubt planted itself in Zuko’s mind.

* * *

Katara had almost finished packing her things. There wasn’t much to bring along, besides the necessities. Rations, clothes, a sealskin sling for her water. Master Hama had told her how some parts of the world were too dry to rely on her environment as a water source. Although she knew they were going to be travelling by boat, Katara didn’t plan on taking any chances.

Something was still missing, and Katara couldn’t quite place her finger on it. She ran through her mental checklist again. Everything was there. What could she have forgotten? Then it struck her. She left her things where they were, and went to go find her brother.

Sokka was sitting in the middle of the village, sharpening that whalebone knife of his. That knife of his could come in handy for her plan, though.

To get his attention, Katara called his name in a voice far too loud for someone sitting three feet ahead of her. He jerked his head slightly. Good enough, she supposed.

“Sokka,” she said again, this time at a reasonable volume, “will you help me find a penguin?”

He stopped what he was doing. “Why do you need a penguin?” he asked without looking up.

“Well,” explained Katara, “I actually just need a feather. For a memento—so I can remember home when we go.”

Maybe she would try to make a necklace out of it. Like the one Mom used to wear.

A moment passed in silence. Sokka sat unmoving, clearly considering her proposal. Katara waited eagerly. She could feel a hopeful smile creeping across her face.

Finally, Sokka looked up at his sister. “Fine,” he sighed. “Let me go get my boomerang.”

* * *

Aang decided to leave Appa on the frozen shore of the South Pole. He still seemed to be pretty tired. Tired enough to not want to fly, which was crazy, Appa  _ loved _ flying. But he could rest up all he wanted while Aang and his friends went penguin-sledding.

When they finally got to the top of the hill and saw all the penguins below, Aang couldn’t help but do a happy little tap dance in the snow with his feet. He turned around, beaming, and saw his Fire Nation friends trudging their way up the slope. To be nice, he waited for them to catch up.

The Fire Nation boy’s eyes widened when he saw the penguins, too. Aang grinned at him. “Aren’t they cool?” he marveled. His friend nodded a yes, and Aang turned back around.

He shouted over his shoulder to his friends, “Before we can ride them—” remembering suddenly, his voice dropped to a hush— “we have to  _ catch _ them. So be quiet!”

Having dispensed this wisdom, Aang focused on his task. A single penguin was isolated from the group, at the edge of the crowd. Aang set his sights on him, and began to creep over. His steps must have been too loud, though. The penguin saw him and retreated into the flock. Not about to let it discourage him, Aang found a new target.

Penguin rustling was a lot harder than Aang had expected. By the time he was able to get within grabbing distance of one, he had worked his way straight into the middle of the group. In a single sudden motion, he snatched the penguin in a great platypus-bear hug, lifting it off the ground. The penguin squawked a bit in his arms, then settled down.

Aang swung around with his prize to find his Fire Nation friends. They had followed him into the bunch, but neither of them had caught any penguins themselves yet. Being nice again, he asked, “Do you guys need help?”

The Fire Nation girl looked at her brother and said, “I think we’ll pass on penguin sledding.”

Even though Aang tried not to let it get to his mood, his smile drooped just a little bit. Then he perked up. “That’s okay! You guys can watch me!” he proposed. Now he had to find a fun place to sled. Penguin in arms, he waddled over to a promising pile of ice.

When he got there, the pile was even better than he could have hoped. A smooth tunnel had been carved into the ice, heading down to who knows where. But Aang knew his friends wouldn’t be able to see him sledding like he’d suggested. But this tunnel was just  _ too _ good to pass up.

This was a pretty big problem.

After a moment to think, he decided on a perfect compromise. “I’m going to go down this tunnel first,” he told his friends, “and then I’ll come back up and go sled back down the way we came.” He nodded his head in the direction where Appa was, waiting by the ocean. “So that way you can still watch.”

Everyone should be happy with his plan. The Fire Nation girl sure seemed to be, since she waved her hand at the hole in the ice. “Be my guest,” she said.

Aang took that as the go-ahead, and waddled the rest of the way to the tunnel. With one last look back at his friends, he let out a whoop of excitement and leapt forward. The penguin landed on its belly on the ice, and Aang landed on his belly on the penguin’s back. They were off.

* * *

Sokka was taking far too long to just be ‘grabbing his boomerang.’ Still, Katara knew that he was doing her a favor, so she let it slide. His expression may have been disinterested at best, but he was there for her anyways. It only ever took a little nudging with him.

Well, sometimes it took more than a  _ little _ nudging.

Since it was Katara’s expedition, she was the one who led the way through the knee-deep snow. A fresh coat had fallen over the village over the past week, and she hadn’t had time to remove it with her Waterbending.

It hadn’t been a very good week for her.

Fifteen yards in, she realized that she had forgotten to grab snowshoes, explaining why her progress was so slow. She debated going back to grab them and try again. Doing that would probably save her more time in the long run. Katara started to turn around.

Behind her, she saw that Sokka had  _ not _ forgotten his own snowshoes. His wide, light prints walked beside her own deep imprints in the snow. Sokka smiled and raised his brows. “Giving up?” he asked, twirling the boomerang in lazy circles around his finger.

Of course she wasn’t giving up. Katara huffed and looked back at the way they were going. The ridge marking the very edge of the village was easily another fifty yards away, and then it would be at least another hundred to get to the penguins’ flocking grounds. Going the entire distance at this rate could take a long time. More time than she had available.

Instead, Katara took a deep breath and shifted her feet in the snow. She raised her arms in front of her, focusing. Her fingers flexed, and the snow in front of her crunched as it became a solid mass. Just like Master Hama had taught her. She wouldn’t be able to Snow Surf going uphill, but she could use the same principles to give herself a solid foothold.

Smiling to herself, Katara gingerly tested the strength of the snow in front of her. It held one boot, then both of them together. Now she could walk on the snow as well as any pair of snowshoes would let her. Her smile grew wider as she continued, undeterred, on her quest for the penguin.

Katara’s bending could only reach the snow up to roughly ten yards in front of her, so she had to stop and re-freeze the snow periodically. Even more so, as the ground beneath her feet sloped upwards towards the ridge. She made sure to keep her pace quick between those points, so Sokka wouldn’t have to wait for her to catch up. By the sound of the footsteps behind her, he was still walking on the fresh snow to the side.

Soon— _ much _ sooner than if Katara hadn’t come up with her little trick—they reached the lip of the ridge. For this next part, she  _ could _ have solidified the snow all the way up to the point and clambered over it that way. Katara had a different plan in mind. Trying to maintain her balance as much as she could on such a sloped surface, she shifted one foot back, but kept her hips and shoulders even. Waterbending was mostly about redirecting energy that was already in motion, like Master Hama said. But sometimes, you had to grit your teeth and  _ push _ .

The peak of snow exploded as Katara shoved it all out of her path. It blew out and up, into the air, creating a brief flurry of snowfall. None of it landed on either Katara or Sokka, who whistled. Big flashy displays of Waterbending always seemed to impress him.

When the last of the snow fluttered to the ground, Katara could see the cluster of penguins, exactly where she’d hoped they’d be. She could also see two penguins that were much taller and thinner than the rest. On second thought, they looked more like  _ people _ than penguins. They were looking back at her. What were they doing out here? They didn’t look like anyone from the village that Katara knew.

Apparently Sokka didn’t know them either. He raised his voice and called, “Hey! Who are—”

Katara saw a flash of light, then an audible  _ crack _ ripped through the air. It echoed off the landscape, sounding exactly like the shifting of ice. But they weren’t near a glacier that could produce a sound like that. The only other option was Waterbending, but Katara hadn’t done that. The few other Waterbenders at the South Pole were very, very old, and stayed within the village. So what had happened?

Things were getting stranger and stranger around here. When she looked again for the people, Katara couldn’t find them. They must have disappeared amongst the penguins, who were scattering to flee from the sound. Just like that, they were gone.

She looked back at Sokka, who shrugged. “It was worth a shot,” he told her, “but we’re never going to catch those penguins, or those people. Whoever they were.” Turning for home, he added, “I’ve got things to pack, anyways. We’re leaving at dusk, don’t be late.”

With that, Sokka began to make his way down the slope. Katara watched him go for a long minute, then followed behind him, stepping back over her own footprints.

* * *

Azula quickly realized that these penguins were an effective mode of arctic transport, and soon determined how to maximize upon this capability. By lying as flat as she could on the penguin’s back, she was able to speed ahead of her brother. His bothersome calling could still reach her, though, echoed off the walls of the tunnel of ice. She smiled to herself, rolled her eyes, and let up on the penguin.

Only a little bit—even if this wasn’t an  _ official _ race between them, she still had every intention of winning.

She thought the little trick she had done with the lightning and the penguins was particularly clever. They didn’t need those Water Peasants following them on rides of their own. So, she had generated a small bolt, and aimed it at nowhere in particular. The accompanying clap of thunder scared the penguins off, waddling into the tundra on their stubby little feet.

...Fine, she had deliberately aimed to miss the penguins. Normally she wouldn’t have cared, but she felt as if the strange tattooed Airbender boy would have been disappointed if she had struck one.

And her bolt was purposefully too small to kill one outright.

Azula absolutely was not, in no way, shape, or form, going soft. The fact that she neglected to tell her brother to cover his ears before she pulled the stunt was proof enough of that. Azula dug her heels into the penguin’s sides. She definitely wouldn’t admit this to Zuko, but she was enjoying this Penguin Sledding. Maybe she was even having fun.

The Airbender would certainly be thrilled to bits to see that they’d followed along. Unfortunately for him, they’d be leaving very soon after. They all risked exposure if the Water Peasants decided to raise a hue and cry in whatever frozen-over hovels they came from.

Light at the end of the tunnel meant that the ride was coming to an end. Azula squinted at the harsh sunlight reflected off the ice as the penguin skidded to a stop on level ground. Her hand raised to shield her eyes as she looked for Aang. It fell again when she saw what the boy was staring at: a Fire Nation Battle Destroyer, raised and encased in the ice. The national emblem was visible from here, an orange-and-black flag hanging from the bridge tower.

Well, she’d found the remnants of that battle she’d finally been looking for. It didn’t feel nearly as thrilling as she’d anticipated. She mostly felt an unfamiliar sense of dread.

Her brother wasn’t nearly so subtle. When Zuko touched down, he looked back and forth between Aang and the warship before hastily saying, “It’s not what it—”

“I know what it is,” Aang said. He turned to face the two of them. Azula didn’t look at her brother, but she knew he must have been sweating bullets in the frigid air.

Azula wasn’t worried. She could take down a twelve-year-old with both hands tied behind her back.

Aang continued, “That’s what you get for trying to sail straight through the South Pole!” He started to laugh. “Even if they were Firebenders, that was pretty silly of them, thinking they could melt all this ice.”

Zuko’s sigh of relief was so loud, Azula could have sworn she heard it echo off the frozen ground. Still, the Airbender boy didn’t seem to notice that anything was amiss. And she intended to keep it that way. Until they figured out what to do with him.

She started with a small laugh of her own. “Really,” she said, “we can be some proud, stubborn idiots.” Was the jab targeted exclusively at Zuko? Yes.

Was it worth it? Entirely.

While Azula had expected an aggressive reaction from Zuko, the excited gleam in Aang’s eyes was less anticipated. “Maybe there’s treasure in the ship! We should go check it out!” he suggested.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Aang,” she said, as gently as she could. “All of our Fire Nation trading ships have booby traps on them, to protect the treasure from… pirates.” The booby traps were true, the pirates were a hasty fabrication. 

Whatever happened, she could not let him look into that ship. Their carefully maintained blanket avoidance of any mention of the War would collapse in an instant upon the first armory he saw. Even more quickly, if this ship was commissioned after the development of on-deck catapults.

Then they’d have to drag him back to the boat across the tundra, and with the locals nearby… Azula wasn’t very enthused by the thought.

Her efforts seemed to do little to dissuade him, since he laughed again. “I’m an Airbender,” he said, “I wouldn’t even have to touch the ground! At the Air Temple they used to tell us about this one monk, Guru L—”

“I’m sorry, but we really have to get going,” Azula interrupted. “My brother and I have to get to Whaletail Island. People are waiting for us.” Not that she was exactly eager to get to them, but the excuse still held a shred of truth behind it.

No doubt trying to be helpful, Zuko hastily added, “You can show us that Air Temple sometime instead.”

_ Oh, no.  _ Clearly Zuko hadn’t paid enough attention in his history lessons at the Royal Fire Nation Academy for Boys. If he had, he would have remembered that the Air Temples were all  _ destroyed  _ by the  _ Fire Nation _ . So much effort had gone into distracting the little Airbender boy. In a single innocuous comment, everything was thrown into jeopardy once again.

Said little Airbender boy walked right into it. “That’s a great idea! The Southern Air Temple is between here and Whaletail Island! We can stop on the way!” At this point he began to leave the incriminating ship in front of him—excited for a field trip to an even more incriminating graveyard.

It was at that point that Azula knew she should have incapacitated the boy Avatar. They couldn’t deny the war to him forever. Their duty, as leal servants of the Fire Nation, was to put him in chains and ship him back to the homeland… to Father.

For the first time in a long time, Azula chewed her lip.

This was the first Airbender in a hundred years. He was a real, living relic of the past. Far more so than any frosted-over ship frozen in ice. And he could get them to the Air Temple, which was otherwise inaccessible by any means available to Azula.  _ That _ was a perfectly preserved war site, untouched by, well, anyone.

It wouldn’t even count as a detour, since it was on the direct route back from their current detour.

Azula had decided. They would take the Avatar to the Southern Temple, break the terrible, horrible, very sad, very  _ old _ news about his people, and  _ then _ put him in chains. After that, maybe they could go home, the two of them. Azula and her brother, whose laughter at twelve had sounded so much like this boy’s.

What would her brother have sounded like at twelve, with irons clapped around his wrists?

* * *

The sun had just fallen behind the distant mountain’s peak, and Katara was waiting at the village entrance. Her bags were packed and ready to go. She had been waiting there for the past hour, so Sokka wouldn’t have a reason to leave without her. Of course  _ he _ was the one late, in the end.

Gran Gran was there with her. Katara had already said her goodbyes to Master Hama, who lived in the little snow hut on the very outskirts of the village. After all her years in the Fire Nation’s prison, she said, the cold got to her bones too easily to be standing around in the snow for too long. But Gran Gran was of the south, and she was one of Katara’s last family members. Katara was grateful for her company.

The other family member remaining to Katara walked up, dragging behind him a toboggan laden with supplies. Sokka looked first at Katara, then at Gran Gran. His expression softened, and Gran Gran reached her arms wide for a hug from her grandson.

Katara joined in as well, and took a deep breath. Nothing about their journey had felt exactly real yet, not until this moment. She still had a chance to turn back and stay in the village, with Gran Gran and Master Hama and Auntie Ashuna and all the rest. She didn’t have to go through with it.

Then Sokka broke from the hug, and in his eyes Katara saw the same determination as their father had had, when he left all those years ago. Katara knew she had to go with him, she was  _ meant _ to go. Gran Gran must have known it too, since she dropped her arms away from around Katara, letting her go.

Wiping at her face, Katara said, “Goodbye, Gran Gran.”

The old woman smiled and told her, “You’ll keep your brother alive out there for me, won’t you?”

Katara couldn’t help but laugh. “Of course,” she said.

Gran Gran raised an eyebrow. “Then you might want to hurry up,” she said, “before he leaves without you.” A mittened hand reached up over her shoulder and stuck its thumb out behind her.

Twin toboggan tracks led out of the village, to the sea. Katara panicked, picked up her own bag, and hurried to catch up to her brother. She never looked back.

Sokka had practically reached the ship by the time Katara reached him. Her bag was heavier than she’d thought at first. She couldn’t help but feel proud that her needlework held. Luckily, the ship would carry its weight for her for the rest of the journey.

Katara swung the bag in a wide arc, heaving it over the side of the ship. It landed on the deck with a resounding crash. Nothing should have broken, though. None of her supplies were especially fragile. Katara was ready to climb on board herself, then she remembered how many supplies her brother had to haul onto the ship.

Sokka seemed to have only just realized this for himself. His head kept turning back and forth between the toboggan and the ship. He certainly wouldn’t be able to drag the thing across the gap. Frigid seawater lay at the bottom, and toboggans didn’t float.

“Stand back,” Katara warned, an idea forming in her head. Katara reached out to the sea below the hull of the ship, connected to the water, and pulled it upwards. When the swell reached the height of the rail, she stilled her arms and splayed her hands wide.

The water froze in the shape of a great mound of ice. Now Sokka could drag the toboggan right onto the ship and empty it there. It was a bit on the steep side, but he managed to lug the toboggan over all the same, and nothing fell into the drink. Not that Katara couldn’t have fished it out of the ocean with her bending. Still, it would have put a damper on the mood.

Sokka left the toboggan where it was on the deck, clearly intending to reorganize their supplies when they were at sea. He went to the rigging and pulled at some of the ropes. The great blue sail billowed out, and Katara heard the sound of creaking wood as the hull began to shift.

The ice! “Wait!” Katara cried, turning back to her pile of frozen seawater. It still stretched over the railing, binding the ship to the frozen shore. Quickly, she threw her arms out and reached for the ice. It melted almost instantly, turning to a great puddle of water. Half spilled into the sea, and the rest sloshed back onto the deck.

Katara could hear Sokka’s sigh from all the way on the other side of the ship. Not to worry, Katara could fix it easily. She connected to and collected the water, and deposited that back into the ocean as well. She even pulled out the water that had seeped into Sokka’s boots, for good measure.

He didn’t say anything, but Katara knew he was grateful for the help.

Above them, the stars twinkled down from a cloudless sky. There was the moon, too. Katara could see the crescent, widening night after night. Soon, it would be full. But until then, they had a lot of ground to cover.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so yeah, this one's broken into a lot more scenes, with different POVs. chapters range from approx. 5-10 scenes each, with a rough average of 7.  
> Major Character Divergences, for note: Zuko ain't burned, Azula ain't got blue fire, Katara ain't got her necklace. the latter two will be addressed in the story, no worries there lol.  
> anyways chapter 3 should be up by now, so have fun with the Southern Air Temple wooooo


	3. The Southern Air Temple

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> aka Freakout at the Family Reunion

Book 1: Air

Chapter 3: The Southern Air Temple

It took them the entire night and a good deal of the early morning to reach the island that was home to the Southern Air Temple. Azula knew their ship could have made the journey in half the time, but they had to travel slowly so as not to leave the still-not-flying flying bison behind.

Still, they kept pace with the beast. Perhaps it was a morbid fascination that kept Azula attached to the Airbender—her survival instincts certainly weren’t fond of letting him run around free. To see what had happened to the Airbenders, one of the greatest military confrontations of the war…

Azula’s survivalist nature was loud, but her intrigue called a little louder.

From the look of her brother, Zuko wasn’t tagging along because he felt the same. His face was strained, though whether it was out of concern for the boy’s wellbeing or his own was anyone’s guess. It may well be regret. This whole mess was his fault, after all, and Azula wasn’t about to let him forget it.

The boy Aang was currently chattering to them from his seat on the bison’s head, telling them all about his home. At least, that’s what Azula would have guessed he was talking about. She much preferred her voyages to be silent. The best part of the trip had been the middle of the night, when they all dozed off on their respective transports.

When they reached the shoreline of the island that was home to the Southern Air Temple, there was no landing of any sort for their boat to dock. After a moment’s consideration, Azula made her way down to the engine room and gave her brother a set of instructions to follow. Zuko listened well, swinging the drifting ship as close to the beach as he dared. Back on deck after cutting the engine, Azula released the anchor’s winch. The spool of chain whirred before coming to a stop when the anchor touched the bottom.

They worked well together, when it suited them.

Now they had to cross ten yards of freezing water to reach the shore. And after that, they would have to navigate the mountainous terrain. All so Azula could watch this poor little boy have a century-delayed breakdown, and see some century-old war ruins. She really should get her priorities in order.

Aang pulled his bison up to the starboard rail. “Climb on,” he called, beckoning them over.

Azula looked over at Zuko and shrugged. It beat having to hike a mountain in soggy clothing. She balanced on the railing on her toes before reaching out and stepping into thin air. Her fingers reached the lip of the saddle, and she was able to pull herself up and in without issue. When she turned around, she saw that Zuko’s attempt to clamber in was considerably less than graceful. Miraculously, he somehow avoided falling into the drink.

Chest heaving from exertion, Zuko took a seat in the saddle beside Azula. For being a hundred years old and encased in ice, the leatherwork on the thing was exquisite. Tied to the side of the saddle was some intricately carved stick, longer than Azula was tall. She wondered what it was for.

“Okay, Appa,” said Aang, “it’s go time. Come on, buddy.” He snapped the reins, shouting, “Yip, yip!” And finally, the flying bison flew.

* * *

Sokka hadn’t realized just how lonely he would feel once the last glacier faded from view.

The icebergs around them just weren’t the same. Home was behind them now, Gran Gran and Auntie Ashuna and the rest of the village and the grave of their mother. Up ahead, Dad was out there. Somewhere in this impossibly wide ocean.

Their village had been close enough to the coast to have a constant sea breeze, tinged with a salty smell. Now that salt was so present it was almost overpowering. At least it made for a good reminder not to drink the seawater. They had enough fresh water stored below deck to last them at least a week without having to stop. Maybe longer, if they were lucky enough to get some rain.

Katara had glued herself to the bow of the ship, leaning far over the railing. For a moment, Sokka had worried that she would lean too far and fall in. Then he remembered she was a Waterbender. She would be fine.

Sokka still didn’t know what they were going to do with her once they found Dad. She wasn’t old enough by the standards of their Tribe to fight, wasn’t old enough to come along on a voyage across the world, with no return date in sight for years.

Not to mention, she was a girl. Girls don’t fight in the Water Tribes. Sokka was the warrior, who was going to join Dad and the men of the Tribe in fighting the Fire Nation. Katara just… couldn’t do that. As a Waterbender, at least she would be _helpful_ to the Tribe. Hama may have taught Katara some fighting moves, but flashy splashes of water did not a warrior make. It certainly wasn’t enough for Sokka to even entertain the notion of her in combat, even if she were old enough. And it would definitely cause some problems later.

The sound of Katara’s laughter carried on the breeze back to Sokka, and he could tell that this was the happiest she’d been in years.

Being a big brother was hard.

They could worry about her too-young age and her too-girly girlishness later. For now, Sokka decided to enjoy the moment. The Southern sun was shining, and the ship was sailing beautifully on the open water, propelled by a wind so perfect he couldn’t have conjured up a better one himself.

* * *

The Air Temple was quiet, exactly as Azula had expected. It was as quiet as it had probably been for the past hundred years, ever since her forefathers had launched their opening strike of the war. By killing every last Airbender—except for the one standing in front of her. Who, ironically, was probably their biggest threat. Hidden somewhere beneath his twelve-year-old body and twelve-year-old demeanor and twelve-year-old everything.

At least the front yard of the place wasn’t littered with century-old bones to welcome them. Azula noticed that the place was rather spotless, in fact, for the site of an ancient firefight. None of the buildings had any major structural damage. Signs of a long-ago scuffle were present, but only if you knew where to look.

They were often tinged with blackened edges, the sort that would come from fire. Azula didn’t know what exactly air-damaged debris would look like. The Fire Nation hadn’t fought those sort of combatants in a century. But all of the damage she saw was tinged with the shadows of long-ago fires.

Whatever struggle the Airbenders had put up in their time, it was rather pathetic.

The little Airbender boy certainly wasn’t looking for signs of a struggle. His posture revealed his own suspicions about the Temple. “Where are the monks?” he wondered aloud.

“Yes, where could they be,” Azula echoed dryly, elbowing her dearest brother, hard, in the ribs. At least he was smart enough to keep his mouth shut _now_.

Now the boy turned around to face them. “It’s strange,” he said. “The air feels different, too, but I’m not sure…” he trailed off into silence, his eyes fixed on some point behind Azula, near the ground.

Great, less than ten yards into the place and he had figured it out. If Azula had been betting on it, with this boy’s naïveté she probably would have wagered closer to thirty. But she wasn’t, so she turned to see exactly what piece of evidence had ruined their delicate little charade.

It was a bush.

Upon closer inspection, Azula realized that the bush had something long and white sticking out of it. Two long, white somethings. They weren’t bones, they were shaped too oddly for that. And then they _twitched_.

Azula watched as a little… lemur-looking creature scampered out of the shrubbery, coming to a stop at Aang’s feet. The boy cracked a smile, crouched down, and started to pet it on the head. Azula could hear his childlike laughter.

She knew that this was, ultimately, only a small delay of the inevitable. The boy would figure it out eventually, and then things would get _really_ interesting. Azula glanced over at her brother, and he appeared to be almost nauseous with dread. That was his problem to deal with, since he’d gotten them into this mess.

The little Airbender boy stood up and spoke to Azula and Zuko. “Come on, I’ll show you where my friends and I play Airball!” After a moment, he corrected himself, “where we _used_ to play Airball.”

Even if he didn’t yet know that there were precisely zero teammates remaining for him to play this game with, Aang still knew that a hundred years had passed since his last visit. Hopefully spacing the information out would prove to help him handle it better. Or something.

Azula and Zuko still had to get _down_ the mountain somehow. She could probably commandeer the bison if need be, but if the Airbender boy killed it out of spite...

When their little trio made their way down the empty staircase into the long-dead temple, their footfalls echoed off the stone. More faintly, they could hear the sound of the little lemur’s scrabbling feet as it followed hot on Aang’s heels.

* * *

Of all the territory in all the world for the Fire Nation to conquer, why did they have to conquer Whaletail Island? And of all the places for Commander Zhao to be, just _why_ did it have to be Whaletail? The place was damp, dreary, and miserable.

It also suffered from a distinct lack of enemy combatants. Zhao was a man of action, and the lack thereof on the island left him in an irritable mood. He may have been a Navy man at heart, but he would have even accepted an engagement in the Si Wong Desert at this point. So long as it staved off this eternal boredom.

Zhao well understood the strategic importance of occupying this island in particular. The higher-ups back in the Capital War Rooms would use some jargon-laden explanation, such as: _The occupation and militarization of Whaletail Island will serve as an important jumping-off point for an amphibious invasion of the Southern Earth Kingdom._

While such a statement was factually accurate, Zhao also knew the unspoken truth. The Northern Water Tribe was proving to be a wily foe, especially in their native element of the oceans. By adjusting their angle of attack southward, the Fire Nation could avoid the reach of the Northern Tribe while simultaneously keeping an eye on the long-cowed Southern Tribe. Doubting the strength of their old enemies was, of course, how they had wound up in this situation in the first place.

They would beat them all back in time, of course. The Fire Nation was both technologically and martially superior, and their current footholds in the Northern Earth Kingdom were strong and enduring. Zhao couldn’t be in one of those footholds, though, could he?

No, he had to be in _this_ sorry excuse for a fortress. Luckily, it was only a passing visit for him. Commander Zhao was to undergo a tour of a collection of military strongholds, to evaluate their strengths and weaknesses. So far, he found no strengths to speak of at Whaletail Island, save for its strategic location, which meant his report could be mercifully brief.

Zhao still had one more piece of business to take care of before he could begin to wrap up his proceedings on the island. For their sakes, he hoped they got here soon. Otherwise his mood might become even more sour.

* * *

Aang still couldn’t figure out where everyone went. The cute little lemur friend that kept following them around seemed to be the only sign of life in the entire Temple. Was it really that time of year for Yangchen’s Festival? It would explain why he couldn’t find any of the monks. But the air felt too crisp and too dry. It was probably the wrong season for the celebration.

So where were they? Aang kept his head on a swivel as he looked for any sign of his fellow Airbenders. He knew that after a hundred years had passed, none of them would probably recognize him. All of his old friends would be… gone… by now. Such was the nature of life, after all.

They crossed the wide stone plaza that Aang had used for his Airbending training under the watchful eye of the old monks. Like Gyatso, who was gone by now, too.

Aang led the way himself, and his two friends trailed a good distance behind. That little lemur had left Aang’s side, preferring to be with the other boy instead. It made Aang a little sad. He liked that lemur. His two friends were whispering to each other, but Aang was too busy searching to pay attention to what they were saying. He had to find _one_ Airbender eventually.

A cold wind whistled through the plaza. Something was _wrong_ about the sound, but Aang couldn’t tell what it was. Then it hit him—the chimes weren’t sounding at all. The chill that ran down his spine wasn’t from the breeze.

His stomach, which had already had a sinking feeling deep inside, suddenly grew into a vast pit. Aang broke out into a run to where the chimes had been. Those things were treasured heirlooms of his people, thousands of years old. Plus another hundred, now. Why weren’t they ringing?

When he came to the pile of ornately carved metal strewn carelessly on the ground, Aang was lost for words. All he could do was stare. Faintly, he could hear the footsteps of his friends catching up to him. He ignored them.

The chimes were covered in a thick layer of dust and grime. Aang ran a finger through the stuff. It came off the metal easily, revealing the silverish gleam beneath. With the same finger, Aang finished a quick drawing of a smiling face. He stepped aside to admire his work.

Aang cracked a smile himself, through the sadness of the ruined chimes.

Off to the side, his eye caught a piece of cloth draped over the front of an old, ruined tent. Its edges were curled and blackened. Burned. Aang brought his own finger, the one covered with grime, up to his face. It smelled like soot.

As if in a trance, Aang walked to the tent on weightless feet. His hand reached for the cloth, grabbed, pulled.

The first thing he saw was black and red armor strewn across the ground. From his travels to the Fire Nation, he recognized it to be the uniform of their army. They had been crawling over the home islands a hundred years ago, as part of an increased defensive force. But what had the Fire Nation army been doing all the way over at the Southern Air Temple?

The Airbenders had no enemies, they were peaceful. Vegetarians, even! The Fire Nation didn’t have to defend the Air Nomads from anybody. Unless something had happened in the past hundred years. Something bad. Something that his Fire Nation friends hadn’t told him.

Then he saw their bones, and the bones of the monk sitting cross-legged at the far end of the tent. A wooden pendant hung around his neck, unburnt. Aang knew it was Gyatso’s.

* * *

Sokka was no stranger to sailing. Before he was even old enough to walk, his father had brought him aboard for some of his expeditions. While the men aboard fished or whaled, Sokka tied sailor’s knots with the clumsy hands of a child. Someday, his dad had promised him, they would go on some far off adventure, just the two of them. Then, he would learn how to pilot a ship of his own.

Then Mom had died, and Dad left him, too.

When the rest of the men of the Southern Tribe were called to war not long after, Sokka was at a loss for how he was going to continue to learn the craft.

As it turned out, Gran Gran knew a whole lot more about boats than he would have guessed. She never set foot on a deck herself, but she had been more than willing to teach him as much as she could from the ice. Sokka never learned where she had learned all this, or why she refused to get onboard. Still, she was able to give him the guidance he needed to be able to sail by himself.

Every so often, one of her lessons would come back to him. The proper way to angle the sail against the wind, which sort of waters were the easiest to traverse, how to navigate when the winter sun hung frozen in the sky for months on end.

Admittedly, Sokka had no experience sailing this far from shore. Maybe that would make it easier, since there weren’t any bergs or floes to crash into. That may have been why he didn’t feel nearly as nervous as he probably should. He hoped that, if she could see him now, Gran Gran would be proud.

He hoped that Dad would be proud, too.

Sokka finished tying down the jib. The skies were clear, and the water was smooth, so he felt safe leaving the sails fixed to continue on their current course. He retrieved his whalebone knife, and a piece of driftwood he’d brought from home. The high seas could get boring, sometimes. Sokka had to have _something_ to keep himself occupied in his downtime.

This meant that Sokka didn’t notice the slight shifting of the sails when they picked up a faraway wind.

* * *

Wind whipped around Aang, but he was too far gone to feel it. All that filled his mind was the sight of Gyatso, dead before him. They were all dead, all the Airbenders. They hadn’t left, they’d been _murdered._ Aang knew they were gone and they were never coming back. All thanks to those men in Fire Nation uniforms. They were the ones who had done this, they must have been.

Aang remembered everything. Sozin’s greed, his lust for power and dominion. His ambitions to have the Fire Nation colonize the world, and the willpower to see it done. His disregard for anyone who stood in his way. The way he had left his friend to die to see his plan through to fruition. Aang remembered, but the memories had come from someone else.

They all came together in his mind to paint a horrifying picture.

Aang turned his head. Those people were behind him, the Firebenders he’d once called his friends. He watched as they backed away from him. Had they lured him here to kill him, too? A deep pain stabbed through him, the pain of loss and betrayal. The pain pierced deep inside and twisted around itself, slowly turning to anger. To rage.

His feet lifted off the ground, and he let the rage consume him. There was nothing left for him besides it. The wind grew stronger still, and ripped the canvas roof off the tent. Aang rose through it. He was looking, but not seeing. Hearing, but not listening. The part of him that was _him_ was gone, leaving nothing but a shell of anger and hurt behind.

A thousand lifetimes of anguish coursed through him, a growing agony that deafened everything else. His people were gone, the people of those that came before him for a hundred generations, and should have for a hundred after. Their pain was his pain, and they were alone together in their suffering. From miles and miles away, he could feel a tear roll down the cheek of a boy named Aang.

The wind only increased. Dust and debris surrounded him, the ruins of his home further ruined by his own actions.

But it wasn’t his _fault_. It was the fault of those soldiers, of the Fire Nation who had sent them. Deep down, he had known something was wrong ever since he’d laid eyes on the ship in the ice, frozen like he had been. But he hadn’t wanted to listen. Now the evidence was right there in front of his eyes, and he could never shut them again.

He turned his eyes downward, to where the two betrayers stood, watching. The wind buffeted them backwards. Fear gripped him, the fear that they would finish the job their people had started against his, and that fear twisted into anger. He couldn’t let them, wouldn’t let them. His hand moved to strike.

The one turned her face upwards to look at him, and he remembered. She had her eyes, the same eyes as his wife.

But the boy who had once been Aang had no wife. He had no people, he had nothing. All he had was the grief and fury consuming him, and it was hurting him so, so badly. Another tear rolled down that boy’s face. He knew he couldn’t go through with it. Something wanted him too, but another thing refused to let him. And so he didn’t.

Forgiveness. That was something the monks had taught the boy a long, long time ago. A hundred years ago, before they had died, and he had lived. Would the monks forgive him for living? Would they forgive him for running away? The boy would never know. He hoped they would have.

The wind slowed, ever so slightly.

The two still stood in front of him. Should he forgive them? What crimes had they committed? Their people had done a terrible, horrible thing to his own. Would the monks have forgiven their murderers? He didn’t know, and never would. Their chance had been robbed from them.

But the boy called Aang still had a chance, and a choice. The great emptiness in his heart, the one he had felt ever since coming out of the ice, told him that he was the only one left. His people had to survive through him and him alone. Surviving through hatred would be letting them die an entirely different death.

Then he saw the little lemur beside them. The creature was clearly terrified, but it stood its ground against the wind as well. Any move he made against the two would strike the lemur down as well.

Another lesson from the monks. All life is sacred. To go against their teachings would be to abandon the Nomads. Through this, he saw the beginnings of a way to let them live on through him. In preserving their values and beliefs, they could still have a place in this world. 

To begin the journey, he would have to take the very first step.

It was the hardest thing he would ever have to do. Just like the monks had taught the boy, the very last student they would ever have, he let his anger _out_ in a final rush of wind and pain and sorrow, and then let it _go_.

The air stilled, and he felt his feet touch the ground from a thousand miles away.

The boy’s mouth opened. Looking at the two, he gasped out a single word, “I—” and fell silent. He was unconscious before he hit the ground.

* * *

Paperwork was one of Commander Zhao’s least favorite military pastimes. Especially when that paperwork had to be filed by _him_ thanks to someone _else’s_ screwups.

The higher a person climbed through the Fire Nation’s ranks, the more bureaucracy they had to claw through in order to get anything done. Zhao himself had become an unwitting part of that bloated bureaucratic behemoth. A Commander had multiple ships beneath him, and had to coordinate their movements effectively. Only half a year into his own promotion, Zhao had gained a deep respect for the sheer volume of logistics needed to handle such a task.

He had also gained a great deal of confidence, considering how phenomenal his job performance was.

Even while running this little inspection project for his higher-ups, Zhao ran a tight ship among his fleet. Well, each ship was a tight ship of its own, all collectivized under the tight ship that was his command. All of them were running at, or exceeding, the expectations put upon them.

Except for the one tiny freighter.

It was probably the smallest cargo ship in the entire military. Which was probably because it had the smallest crew in the Navy, bordering on criminally few persons aboard. It wasn’t even supposed to be a freighter, it was a repurposed attack ship, intended for combat in the inland rivers of the Earth Kingdom.

 _Intended_ being the operative term.

That little experiment failed partway into development, leaving the Fire Nation Navy with a small fleet of ships that were too small for fighting on the open water, but too slow to sail upriver effectively. The program was scrapped, and the ships abandoned at the dock.

It had been a simple matter to requisition one of those floating hunks of junk for babysitting duty.

The only problem with their little arrangement was that the ship was slow. Too slow, even, to make the simple cargo drops that Zhao requested of them. Perhaps it was the boat itself, floundering in any sea that wasn’t smooth as glass.

Perhaps it was operator error.

Regardless, Zhao planned to have a little checkup with his crewmen when they docked into Whaletail. If they ever arrived. From previous shipping jobs they had done, and from knowledge on the ship itself, they _should_ have arrived by now.

But it wasn’t like they had anywhere better to go. They would arrive eventually, Zhao knew, after whatever little sightseeing detour they had gone on this time. Last time, they had skirted past the Boiling Rock. And they hadn’t even been subtle about it. Zhao typically read paperwork once. He hardly ever read it thoroughly. The only times he ever broke those rules were whenever he saw possible mention of his own personal pet project.

Any day now, they would arrive. And Zhao would set the record straight about everyone’s _expectations_.

* * *

They had carried Aang all the way back to Appa by the time he began to stir. Azula had debated leaving him where he lay. He’d almost killed them at the temple itself. In hindsight, Azula didn’t know why she’d stuck around, watching, as long as she did. Her intrigue was going to be the death of her one of these days.

It had been entirely worth it.

Zuzu, chivalrous as ever, had refused to abandon the boy. He said something sappy about hurting him enough already. Azula didn’t protest very much. To haul the Avatar back to the Fire Nation, if they still planned to do that given his destructive capabilities, they would have to _bring_ the Avatar with them.

The subtle Earthbending around the site of the breakdown confirmed him to actually _be_ the Avatar. The glowing was only an added bonus.

Neither of them was strong enough to heft him into the elevated saddle, so they set him against the massive mound of fur while he regained his bearings. Zuko crouched down on the balls of his feet, but Azula opted to remain standing while they waited.

The Avatar was unrestrained, because Azula didn’t know where the Airbenders kept their good rope. And the Avatar would probably snap any bindings like blades of grass, considering the earlier display of power.

In a worst case scenario, Azula knew that her lightning wouldn’t be so easily deflected by the wind.

Groaning softly, the Avatar opened his eyes. They weren’t glowing anymore, which was a good sign for their wellbeing. At first they were unfocused, but they soon locked on to each of the siblings in turn. His stare hardened.

“Aang,” Zuko started, “we can explain—” Azula shut him up with a swift kick before he could put them in even _more_ mortal peril.

With an empty stare, the boy slowly got to his feet. “Get on the bison,” he said, climbing up to the back of the beast.

Seizing the opportunity to get off the mountain while it was still available, Azula quickly moved into the saddle. Zuko wasn’t far behind. Aang snapped the reins, and they ascended into the sky in silence.

As it was, the silence didn’t last very long. While he didn’t turn his head to face them, Azula could hear the anger in Aang’s voice plain as day when he asked, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Zuko looked at Azula with wide eyes. She stared back and gestured for him to take the lead. This should be interesting. He swallowed, and began to speak. “We didn’t know how to tell you…”

Aang cut him off. “How to tell me the _Fire Nation_ murdered the Airbenders? How _your_ people killed mine?!” He huffed. To Azula, it sounded almost like a sob. He went on, “Were you going to kill me, too?”

“Oh, please.” Azula rolled her eyes and added, “If we’d wanted to kill you, it would have happened a long time ago.”

“That’s not very comforting,” Aang replied. His voice had gone flat.

Zuko chose this opportunity to insert himself into the conversation. “Trust me,” he said, “we don’t want to hurt you.”

Aang yanked on the reins—sending Appa into a dive—and asked, “Then what do you want from me? Why did you go penguin sledding with me?” His voice cracked.

“Because we were bored,” answered Azula. Zuko looked at her incredulously, and she shrugged. “What? It’s the truth. Running military supplies is draining. You ship one crate of Imperial armor, you’ve shipped them all,” she declared.

“You _worked_ for the Fire Nation?” said Aang.

Well, he had them there. Azula pivoted and tried to defuse the situation as best she could before this nosedive grew considerably steeper, and considerably more fatal.

“Yes,” she admitted, “but all we did was take cargo from one place to another.” Conveniently, she omitted their family’s personal contributions to the war effort. “We had no choice. It was a complicated situation for the two of us.”

“Yeah, must have been real _complicated_ ,” Aang muttered dryly.

Zuko chimed in once again, saying, “We didn’t realize the harm the Fire Nation had really done to the world,” he confessed. It was a decent lie, Azula had to admit. “But we don’t have to do that anymore.” Evidently that part was _not_ a lie, since he then leaned over to Azula and, under his breath, asked “ _Do we?_ ”

Azula looked at him, raised her brows, and shrugged. Her apathy for the business was genuine. Whether or not she wanted to hitch the two of them to the boy who was currently furious with their nation was another matter entirely.

The Fire Nation had dealt his people a crushing blow. One that they should never have been able to recover from. But the sole survivor of the Air Nomads hadn’t exacted any revenge against his Fire Nation companions whatsoever, short of some glowing theatrics. He was upset—anyone would be, that was only reasonable. It would be just as reasonable to avenge the deaths of thousands of his people with the deaths of just two more. Especially given how militant the Air Nomad army had been in their history books.

But this boy was no soldier. He was a _child_ , along with all the others that the Fire Nation had put down, for the collective crime of being traitors to peace, justice, and security. A blood traitor, victim first and foremost of being born to the wrong parents.

The first seed of pity planted itself in Azula’s heart.

Then the bison touched down on the gravel beach. Azula and Zuko looked over to their boat, still anchored just offshore. They looked at each other, and then up to Aang.

He didn’t move. In a distant voice, he said, “You can get off now.”

“Where are you going?” Zuko asked.

“Away.” Aang raised the reins in his hands. Zuko scrambled to get out of the saddle. Azula followed, but with considerably more poise.

The bison lifted off into the sky, headed due east. Azula stood on the rocky beach and watched it fade into the distance. Then, she heard a familiar chirp come from behind. She turned to see what it was.

Her suspicions were confirmed when she saw the lemur gliding down from the mountain on webbed wings. It landed on Zuko’s head, who instantly froze. Slowly, he reached his hand upwards. Before he could seize it, the lemur screeched and flapped off—but not before making a tangled mess out of his hair.

Azula may not have laughed, but she did allow herself a wide grin. The lemur didn’t stay away for long, either. Soon it came crawling back to clutch Zuko’s leg. This time he didn’t even bother trying to remove it.

He looked at his sister with an exasperated expression. “We should get this thing back to him,” he said, clearly referring to the boy that had left them on the island.

Like she’d said before, Azula was _bored_ . Returning a lemur to a boy who may or may not even want the thing would make her day a little more interesting. Especially when said boy wanted absolutely nothing to do with the two of them anymore. But he was heading due northeast, in the same direction as Whaletail Island. It was almost as if he _wanted_ them to follow him.

She smiled and said, “Why not?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> awwwww yeah bitches it's Zhao. i love that smarmy asshole he's so much fun to write for. all my notes for his scenes are just him complaining about whatnot it's awesome  
> speaking of fun to write for, trippy avatar sequences are where it's at. where it's not at is writing azula to do the right thing, even with her mental health boost. it's like herding cats. or lemurs. Zuko's definitely the unwitting animal guy of the group tho it's practically canon  
> anyways this is the end of the big flashy opener. updates will be mondays from here on out and it should be consistent at least until book 2 since im planned. out. as hell. i'll see u next week :)


	4. Kyoshi's Island

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> aka The Re-Friending Process

Book 1: Air

Chapter 4: Kyoshi's Island

Aang wanted to keep flying. To get as far away from the place that had once been his home as fast as he could. Far away from his home, and the home of everyone he’d known and loved. Now, it was all just… dead. The stupid Fire Nation had made it that way. They’d _ruined_ it.

And his friends. Well, he’d thought they were his friends. They were nice, and they could have all travelled around the world on Appa instead of that silly little not-flying boat—

Aang shook his head. They were Firebenders. Their people _killed_ his. They could never be friends. Just because he’d forgiven them didn’t mean he had to welcome them back with open arms. So he had to get far, far away from them, too.

Below Aang, Appa groaned—the bison was getting tired. As much as Aang didn’t want to stop, he knew he had to. If only for the sake of his only friend left in the entire world. He steered Appa towards the nearest land, an island to the west.

They landed on the beach. Though the landing did feel more like a crash than usual. Appa was usually pretty gentle. Aang guessed he was still probably cranky from the iceberg. So was he. A hundred years’ worth of running away would do that to you.

And here he was, running away again. But what could Aang do? Take on the whole entire Fire Nation by himself? Him and his single sky bison wouldn’t stand a chance, he knew that much. The Fire Nation must be itching to kill the last Airbender, even if they didn’t know that he was still alive… yet. They would probably know soon, thanks to his two former friends, and then they would come after him.

He wondered what had stopped his two former friends from trying to capture him. Or kill him outright. That didn’t matter now, though. As soon as he did get caught, his life was over. So first, he would live.

If Aang was right about where he was—and he had a pretty good sense of direction—then something fun and exciting should be in the bay behind him. He turned to look behind him.

Yes! Giant elephant koi leapt out of the water. His friend Bumi had told him about this island and its huge, rideable fishes. Though Bumi had told him about them a hundred years ago. The thought that Bumi was probably gone too made Aang sad. But the elephant koi weren’t gone! Aang began to strip down to his shorts, so his clothes would stay dry on shore. He couldn’t dry them with Waterbending, after all. He wasn’t a Waterbender.

Before he could set foot in the water, he saw a massive shadow lift out of the water. A fin that was by itself even bigger than the elephant koi unfurled in the air. It kept going… and going… and _going_. Suddenly Aang was having second thoughts about just how much fun he would have.

When the fin finally sank below the waves again, Aang saw a speck on the horizon. It grew quickly, and he soon realized it was the silly little boat of his former friends. They were following him! Aang was angry. He’d told them to leave him alone, and they didn’t listen. Of course they didn’t. Now they were going to try to come to kidnap him… or worse.

Aang was about to get Appa back into the air to leave. Then he remembered the giant fish, the one that was even more giant than the elephant koi. It was still in the bay, and the boat was probably heading right for it. That tiny thing wouldn’t stand a chance.

He went to Appa’s saddle and reached for his glider tied to its side. Then he stopped. Should he really try save these people, who would probably just going to take him right back to their Fire Nation overlord? Aang decided that he should try anyways. It didn’t matter what they might do in the future, they didn’t deserve to get eaten by the monster fish. Plus, they _did_ go penguin sledding with him. That meant they couldn’t be all evil.

Then, the monster fish reared its huge monster head. From Aang’s point of view, it was smaller than a normal koi fish. But it was actually all the way over by the boat. It must have been enormous. There was no way he would get there in time to make any difference. A tiny speck lifted off from the boat, slowly growing in size as it flew in Aang’s direction.

The monster fish _roared_. With its jaws that wide, it could have swallowed Appa and the ship together in a single bite and had plenty of room to spare. Aang couldn’t look away. Maybe he should have, because then a bright flash of light came from the boat. It struck the monster fish with a loud cracking sound that echoed over the water. Was that... lightning?

Whatever it was, it was scary enough to make the monster fish retreat back under the water. Aang breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that they were okay. His former friends, to be more accurate. At that point, the little lemur buddy from back at the Air Temple finished its flight from the boat and landed in front of him. For a moment, Aang was confused. Why would they bring the lemur with them if they were his enemy? He looked out at the boat, still some distance from the shore. For a moment, he wondered if he should maybe give them a second chance.

Then the mob swallowed him whole.

* * *

Even at their distance from the shore, Zuko could make out the wave of people that swept Aang away. They were wearing blues. Blues usually meant Water Tribe. Suddenly, he felt a pang of doubt about trying to meet with Aang again.

He voiced his concerns aloud. “Should we still go in?” he asked Azula, who was staring intently at the water. The lemur had returned to Aang, after all. They had _technically_ accomplished their mission. Their payment had been a near-death experience by way of some enormous sea monster. Zuko counted his lucky stars that Azula had figured out lightning in time to scare the thing off.

Azula looked up. She asked, “Well, why not?”

Her response was nothing if not surprising.

“Because he may not want us back,” Zuko said. “We’re still guilty of what he’s mad at us for. Half a day probably didn’t change that.”

Raising an eyebrow, Azula countered, “So what if he does? It’s better to reach out and get rejected than to leave without ever knowing.” She made her way over to the bridge of their boat.

“Besides,” she added, “the past two days have been more interesting than the five years before that combined. I’m not giving that up so easily.”

Zuko wasn’t about to stop her. He may not have admitted it aloud himself, but he felt the same. The boat’s engine sputtered, and they chugged along towards the island. The crowd had dispersed from the beach, but Zuko knew that they would still be with the Avatar. He looked down at his scarlet sleeve, and realized they had a problem.

“They’re going to know we’re Fire Nation,” he told Azula.

“Yes,” she agreed. “Odds are, he’s told them already.” Then she paused, and mused to herself, “Or maybe not…”

Zuko looked at her. “Why not?”

“Because they left the beach,” she said. “If the locals were going to repel or confront us, it would happen before we landed. _Should_ happen.”

It made sense to Zuko. But that meant that the original problem had suddenly become a problem again. “So what do we do about these?” he asked, tugging at his obviously Fire Nation shirt.

Azula had an answer for that as well. She usually did. Opening a hatch in the deck of the ship, she began to rummage about. “When we got this ship,” she explained, “they gave us some neutral Earth Kingdom clothes. In case we were approached by the Water Tribe.”

“That’s dumb,” Zuko pointed out. “They would obviously know that we weren’t.”

Azula scoffed, “Believe me, I know.” She added, “It was probably the brainchild of some understimulated military think tank who needed something new for the next war meeting in order to keep pulling a paycheck.”

Zuko snorted.

He leaned against the rail of the ship and watched his sister hunt for the clothing they’d never bothered to use before now. He doubted anyone in the Fire Nation had used them. Death before dishonor, and whatnot.

They had wound up putting the cart before the ostrich-horse on that one, hadn’t they?

Azula stood up, clutching a handful of green and brown fabrics. “Found them,” she said, grinning.

On the one hand, they didn’t appear to have been eaten by moths in the meanwhile. On the other, they looked like they were going to itch.

Nevertheless, Zuko took the clothes that Azula offered to him. It was their best chance of reaching Aang and speaking to him without running into trouble with the locals. He could only hope that the boy didn’t expose them on sight. Zuko pulled the scratchy shirt over his head and prepared to encounter the enemy for the first time in his military career.

* * *

They had tied Aang to the giant wooden post in the center of town. Aang had caught a peek of the tall wooden statue of a lady at the very top of it before they turned him around and wrapped the rope around him. She looked familiar. Aang wasn’t totally sure why.

The people on the island had also tried to tie up his little lemur friend. He was too quick for them, though, and soared off to a distant rooftop. Aang could see him from here. Since his hands were pinned to his sides, Aang bared his teeth as wide as he could, giving his buddy what he hoped was a reassuring grin.

His buddy blinked back.

Aang’s captors were a collection of people in blues and greens. Most of the people in green were girls. Their faces were painted in whites and reds and blacks. Some of them held golden fans, and others had swords at their sides.

They looked familiar, too. Just like the lady at the top of the post.

“Who are you, and why are you here?” asked one of the painted girls. Her voice was too high for the woman whose face she wore.

But Aang wasn’t going to be rude and _tell_ her that. The monks had taught him to have good manners around strangers. “My name’s Aang. I’m here to ride the elephant koi,” he answered honestly.

The girl scoffed. “No one would dare to ride the elephant koi,” she said. “Not with the Unagi in the bay.”

“It’s true!” Aang protested. Though if he’d known about the giant monster-fish beforehand, maybe he would have had second thoughts about it.

Maybe.

The girl’s black painted brows lowered suspiciously. “Kyoshi Island has stayed out of the war so far,” she said. “On _both_ sides. We intend to keep it that way. So which one are you spying for?”

Aang blinked. What war?

Then he remembered the people from the Fire Nation, his not-friends who had talked about capturing him. But they hadn’t. They were supposed to, though.

And their people had killed the Airbenders a hundred years ago. It must have been a pretty long war, if they were still fighting it. Or maybe this was a different war, and they had taken a break in the middle for a couple of years.

He probably should have asked for more details before leaving his not-friends like that.

But they were coming back for him. And they had brought his lemur-friend. The lemur-friend most definitely was _not_ trying to capture him or anything like that. When the not-friends had almost gotten eaten by the Unagi, Aang had felt _worried_ for them. It was confusing, that was for sure.

Apparently Aang had been lost in thought for a while, because the girl whipped out one of her fans. He’d had one just like it, a very long time ago. Placing the edge along his neck, she asked again, “Which is it, spy?”

“Hey,” Aang protested, “I’m not a spy!”

The fan didn’t go anywhere. In fact, it came even closer to the skin of Aang’s throat. He could feel how sharp it was, just by the way it cleaved the air around him.

“Sounds Fire Nation to me,” the girl said.

Aang pointed out, “But if I was Fire Nation, couldn’t I have just burned the ropes off?”

The girl did not look to be appreciative of his insight.

“Fire Nation spy it is,” she decided. “We’ll decide your fate at dusk.” The fan pulled away from his neck, and the girl stepped back about a foot from him.

The sun was still pretty high in the sky. Aang hoped they wouldn’t leave him tied to the post all day. The ropes were starting to dig into his skin, and his legs were cramping.

Before the crowd had a chance to disperse, Aang had one last idea to prove his innocence. “Kyoshi Island,” he remembered aloud.

“What about it,” asked the girl in a deadpan tone.

Aang was remembering more now. “You’re one of the Kyoshi Warriors,” he said. “And that—” he tilted his head back as far as he could, looking up the wooden post— “is Avatar Kyoshi.”

The girl’s expression was blank. “And?”

“I really didn’t want to have to do this, but…” Aang paused for effect. “ _I’m_ the Avatar! The new one. Nice to meet you.” He tried to stick his hand out to shake, but he forgot it was tied down by lots of ropes. His hand only flopped at his side as he turned the action into a wave.

The girl looked at him, blinking slowly. Then she suddenly doubled over in laughter. “The Avatar,” she wheezed. “That’s a good one. Haven’t heard that one in, say, a hundred years?” Some of the people around her giggled, too.

Aang could feel a flush creeping up his neck. “It wasn’t my fault!” he said, only lying a little bit. “I was just—”

“You were what?” asked the girl as she caught her breath. “Coming up with the worst cover story I’ve heard in my life?”

Suddenly the fan was back, way too close for comfort. “You’re a spy and a liar,” she said, all traces of humor drained from her voice. “The punishment for which is death.”

There was a sudden chill in the air. Dying seemed like an awfully high price for a simple misunderstanding. Dying seemed like an awfully high price for _anything_. Aang felt bad for his past life, if this was what her people had become.

Aang opened his mouth to try and defend himself, but was silenced by the fan pressing at his neck.

“Your fate will be decided at dusk,” the girl said solemnly. “By the Unagi.”

“Is that the giant fish monster?” called a familiar voice from the crowd. “You can’t do that! He’s just a kid!”

The girl squared her shoulders, turning her head to shout back. “The Fire Nation has been known to use children for their dirty work. We need to do what is necessary in order to keep our island safe.”

Muttering broke out among the crowd. Then some people jostled about, and two new faces showed up at the front of the crowd. They were wearing new, green clothes, but Aang would recognize their faces anywhere.

It was his not-friends!

Momo glided down from the rooftop to perch on the boys’ head. Aang couldn’t help but grin. The fan against his neck stopped poking so hard.

The girl holding the fan asked, “Do you know these people?”

“Yes!” Aang said quickly. It sounded more like a squeak than an actual word. He cleared his throat and pitched his voice down. “Yes, I know them.”

The girl not-friend, the one who didn’t have a lemur attached to her head, said loudly, “He really is the Avatar, you know.”

“And how do I know _you’re_ not his Fire Nation accomplices?” countered the girl.

The funny thing was, they actually _were_ Fire Nation. But given the way these people treated the Fire Nation, Aang didn’t want to expose his not-friends. They didn’t deserve to get eaten by the monster-Unagi. Nobody did. All life was sacred, no matter their current friendship-status.

The girl not-friend said, “He’s an Airbender, which is definitely _not_ Fire Nation. He can prove it to you.”

Oh, right. Aang had forgotten about that.

The painted-face girl turned back to Aang. A moment passed, then she pressed, “Well? Prove it.”

Aang wiggled his fingers beneath their bindings. “I’m a little too tied up to Airbend,” he pointed out.

The painted-face girl and not-friend girl sighed at the same time. But the painted-face girl was closer, and she used the _very_ sharp edge of her fan to slice through the ropes with a single flick of her wrist. Aang felt an instant rush of relief as his blood got back to all the places it was supposed to be.

Shaking out his legs, Aang shifted his feet into an Airbending stance. Then he breathed in, and out, and his arms circled around him, faster and faster. He leapt off the ground and pulled the air around him into a tight ball beneath his foot. The air held his weight. Aang was balancing on top of a swirling sphere.

The Air Scooter. A classic.

He held the move for less than a minute, dropping his feet back to solid ground. The painted-face girl stared at him with wide eyes. Her fan hung limp at her side. She was silent, along with the rest of the crowd.

An old man in the crowd, dressed in blue, was the first to bow. “Avatar Aang,” he said, head pressed against the ground, “it has been too long. The world has eagerly awaited your return, to put an end to the Fire Nation’s tyranny and bring a return to balance.”

Everyone else followed in the bow, except for Aang’s two Fire Nation not-friends. They just stood there, watching. Aang stared back, unsure of what to say to them.

The old man rose again. “We are honored to welcome you to our island, Avatar. You and your…” His head turned to Aang’s not-friends. “...companions.”

Aang bowed back. Not the whole way, just a small bend at the waist. “Thank you,” he said politely.

“Can we interest you in a welcoming feast, Avatar?” the man offered. "As apologies for our harsh treatment."

“That would be nice,” Aang decided. He didn't miss the look the old man gave to the warrior with the fan.

Momo purred from over by his not-friends. Aang remembered them, and asked, “Are my—companions—invited, too?” It was the least he could do, after they saved him from being eaten by the Unagi.

“Of course,” said the man. He turned to Aang’s not-friends. “We humbly invite you to join in our celebration as guests of honor…” This time when his voice trailed off, it didn’t come back.

Oh. He was probably asking for their names. Aang realized he had never learned them himself in the time they had spent together. They’d had bigger things to worry about, like going penguin-sledding and visiting the Air Temple. And then leaving them behind at the Air Temple.

The point was, Aang didn’t know their names, so he couldn’t help.

His not-friends had also realized what the man was asking of them. The boy spoke first. “Lee,” he said, dipping his head slightly.

“Ilah,” said the girl. That name didn’t seem like it fit her very well. But what did Aang know?

“Lee and Ilah,” repeated the old man. “And Avatar Aang. Welcome to Kyoshi Island. We hope you enjoy your stay.”

Aang would certainly try. He rubbed his neck, right where the fan had been.

* * *

Despite the fact that Aang had been missing in action for a hundred years and that they had been hours away from sentencing him to death for espionage, the people of the island had wasted no time in preparing a welcoming feast for him that evening.

Since they had been reinstated as the Avatar’s ‘companions,’ Zuko and Azula were given seats next to him at the high table. Zuko wasn’t sure exactly how much they deserved such seats of honor. His ancestors _had_ still exterminated Aang’s people. Not to mention how just a day ago, he had rejected them at the Air Temple. Pretty deservedly.

Aang wasn’t openly complaining, though, so Zuko decided to keep his own mouth shut. The lemur that had brought them back together was soaring overhead. Occasionally, it dived down to swipe vulnerable food from the plates of unsuspecting villagers. It tried for Azula’s plate once, but the glare she had sent in his direction nearly struck him out of the sky.

Lightning might have been a kinder fate for the poor thing.

The village elder was the one doing most of the talking at the high table. He was telling Aang all about Avatar Kyoshi’s worldly adventures, centuries ago. Most of them seemed to involve some form of restoring justice, or balance, or helping people. Some of the stories got awfully violent. Zuko suspected that even those were the watered-down versions. The Avatar’s current incarnation was only twelve, after all, and they were _eating_.

The highlight of the lecture was when the village elder compared the ancient crusade of Chin the Conqueror to today’s Fire Nation. Aang had been watching the lemur, but he still flinched at the mention of the Fire Nation’s ongoing war. Zuko was pretty sure he hadn’t reacted in any noticeable way himself. Azula was far too composed for him to even worry about her.

For most of the dinner, Zuko’s eyes stayed on the lemur, too, as he wheeled through the air. Picking idly at his plate, he then turned to Aang. “Are you going to give him a name?” he asked during a lull in the history lesson, gesturing to the lemur. It was currently gnawing on its most recent prize: a bright red apple.

“I don’t know,” Aang sighed, “I mean, I already have Appa as my companion.”

The village elder spoke up. “Avatar Kyoshi had a fox as her animal guide,” he said. “It is tradition for an Avatar to have one for the duration of their lifetime.”

“See?” said Aang, “Only one life companion.” That didn’t stop him from looking longingly at the lemur.

Zuko heard movement on his other side, where his sister was sitting. Azula then asked, very pointedly, “Who set the tradition of one animal guide?” Zuko could just tell she was up to something.

“Well,” the elder hesitated, “the Avatar did.”

She followed up with another question. “And who is the Avatar now?”

The elder blinked. Gesturing to Aang, he slowly answered, “He is the current incarnation, yes…” Behind, Zuko could see the warrior girl furrow her painted brows.

“So the tradition was set by the Avatar, for the Avatar,” Azula summarized, “And as the Avatar, Aang should be able to change the tradition as he sees fit.” With that, she turned back to her plate and speared another piece of food with her fork. The conversation was over, at least for her. Her mission had been a success, whatever it was. Undermining the authority of the village elder, if Zuko had to guess.

Aang’s eyes widened with excitement. He turned to look at the elder, who only shrugged in defeat. That was apparently enough of a confirmation for him, since he leapt out of his chair to stand on top of the table.

“Momo!” he called. “Come here, buddy!”

Zuko quickly figured out who Momo was supposed to be when the lemur made a sudden, sharp turn in the air. It—he—swooped down onto Aang’s outstretched arm. Aang laughed and stroked his head with his free hand.

Then he suddenly stopped. Aang turned to face Azula, who looked up from her plate. Still standing on the table, and with the lemur still on his arm, he bowed to her and said, “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it,” she replied. She took another bite.

* * *

After they served the last dish of Aang’s feast, the villagers began to leave under the light of the evening sun. Eventually, only a handful were left, all of them sitting at the high table. They were Aang, his maybe-or-not friends, the leader of the island, the Kyoshi Warrior girl, and his new lemur friend Momo. Momo had eaten so much during the feast that his stomach had swelled up like a little melon. Aang thought it was pretty funny.

The painted-face girl spoke up for the first time all dinner. For the first time since threatening to feed Aang to the Unagi.

“Ilah,” she said, obviously speaking to Aang’s maybe-friend, “would you like to attend a training session with the Kyoshi Warriors tomorrow? Normally we don’t let in outsiders, but as the Avatar’s _companion_ , you would be an honored guest.” She smiled.

Aang’s maybe-friend smiled right back, but hers looked different. “I wish I could,” she sighed, “but my brother and I have business to attend to.”

“Nonsense!” the village leader piped up. “You can’t expect to leave the island at this hour! The Unagi is most active at night—it simply wouldn’t be safe.” If this Unagi was the giant water monster from before like Aang suspected, then it didn’t make much sense that it attacked his maybe-friends’ boat during the day. Though if Aang knew anything about animals from his experiences with Appa, it was that they were unpredictable on the best of days.

“Then we’ll leave at dawn,” decided Aang’s maybe-friend, turning to her brother. “Won’t we?”

Aang knew that nobody really needed his contribution, but he wanted to share it anyways. So he told them, “Appa’s gonna need a lot of rest.” Turning to the warrior girl, he asked, “Can I come to the training session tomorrow?”

The warrior girl didn’t even look at him when she said, “It’s for girls. _Only_ girls.”

That was hardly fair. The Kyoshi Warriors were named after him, and they wouldn’t even let him in! Well, they were named after one of his past lives, who also happened to be a girl, too.

Aang shrugged—it had been worth a shot—and went back to watching his new friend Momo try to fly under the added weight of all that food he had eaten. His stomach was _huge_.

“So we’re all going to be staying the night here,” noted his other maybe-friend, Lee.

The village leader asked him, “Are you going to want lodging with the Avatar? Or would you like separate accommodations?”

Aang seized the opportunity to quickly say, “They’ll stay with me!” He hadn’t had a chance to talk to them alone since the Southern Air Temple. And boy, did he have some questions for the two of them.

Like why they’d saved him from the Unagi when the Fire Nation wanted the Avatar dead.

Luckily, neither of them questioned the decision. With the villagers surrounding them, they hopefully wouldn’t try to kidnap him, or worse. The village leader led them to their lodging, a simple wooden inn. Before Aang could go through the entryway, the Kyoshi warrior girl yanked him aside. He blinked up at her painted face.

“Look,” she said in a low voice, “I’m sorry for what happened earlier.”

“That’s okay,” smiled Aang. “I forgive you.”

“We only use tha—” the girl stopped mid-sentence. “What?”

Aang nodded his head solemnly. “I forgive you for almost feeding me to the Unagi.”

The girl blinked repeatedly. Her red eye paint flashed every time she did. “I wasn’t _actually_ going to feed you to the Unagi,” she explained. “It’s a threat we use on all the spies that come here, to get them to blow their covers. I never expected it to be…”

“That’s okay,” Aang said. “In that case, I forgive you for threatening to feed me to the Unagi.”

If he could forgive his maybe-friends for what had happened to his people, Aang could forgive this girl, too. She had only been worried about her home.

The girl looked at him funny. Then she turned around and walked away. Aang rejoined his maybe-friends to find their room in the inn.

As a nomad, Aang was no stranger to sleeping outdoors or in relative discomfort. The monks had taught him to shun material luxury, after all. But when the material was as nice as this plush featherbed, he found it hard to resist, especially after he’d spent a hundred years sleeping in an iceberg. It was only for one night.

As soon as they were alone, Aang turned to his maybe-friends. “So,” he said awkwardly. “Lee and Ilah. Ilah and Lee.”

The girl, Ilah, rolled her eyes. “We’re even now,” she said. “You didn’t kill us at the Air Temple, we saved you from getting eaten by the giant monster fish.”

“Yeah, about the Air Temple…” Aang scratched his head. “The Fire Nation attacked them a hundred years ago, right?”

Lee nodded his head.

Aang asked, “Is that war the same one going on now? The people at the village kind of mentioned another war with the Fire Nation.”

“They’re one and the same,” said Ilah, “started a hundred years ago by our g— by Fire Lord Sozin.”

“Woah,” Aang breathed. A hundred years was a really long time to be fighting. “Is that why you guys are wearing—”

Lee interrupted him with a loud shushing sound. “I don’t want to meet the Unagi again myself,” he hissed, “so please _keep it down_.”

Aang threw a hand over his mouth. But then he remembered that the Unagi threat was only a threat. At least, that’s what the painted-face girl had told him. He wasn’t sure what to believe anymore, and from who.

Speaking of lying, Aang remembered one that he had told his maybe-friends, when he’d first met them. “When I was tied up,” he started, “you guys knew that I was definitely the Avatar, even though no one else believed me.” Even though he had lied to them about it.

“And?” asked Ilah.

Aang scratched his head. “I told you that I wasn’t the Avatar. How did you know that I was?”

Ilah laughed a little. “You’re a terrible liar,” she said, smiling. Then she looked at her brother. He glared at her, then cracked a grin of his own.

“Thanks, Ilah,” muttered Aang. “And Lee,” he added. He didn’t want to leave either of them out after they had both laughed at him.

“Ilah and Lee,” repeated Aang after a moment, tossing the names around with his voice. “Lee and Ilah.” They sounded funny, so Aang kept saying them. Momo chirped and ran around in circles on the wooden floor, keeping time with each repetition.

Eventually, Lee seemed to have had enough. “Will you stop that,” he complained.

“Why?” asked Aang. “They’re just your names.”

Ilah said, “It doesn’t matter. At dawn, we are leaving.”

Aang perked up. “We?” Before he could stop himself, he asked, “Are you guys travelling with me?” Then he remembered they were Fire Nation, and he was filled with doubt.

Lee looked at his sister. “Are we?” he asked her.

Ilah tilted her head, looking at Aang with the same funny look that the painted-face girl had given him before. “Well, where are you going?” she asked.

Aang shrugged. “Dunno,” he said.

“Love the confidence,” she muttered.

“I’ll probably head north, though,” Aang added, “maybe to Omashu. I have… I had an old friend from there.”

Lee asked, “You’re not gonna try to stop the Fire Nation?”

Sighing, Aang admitted, “I probably should. But I’m just a kid, you know? How can I stop a whole Nation of evil?” After a moment, he clarified, “Not you guys. You’re nice. You saved me from the Unagi.”

“Thanks,” said Lee.

Aang smiled. “No problem!” Then his face fell. “You’re probably going to go back to working for the Fire Nation, aren’t you?”

Ilah answered, “Probably.”

“That’s not good,” Aang pouted. Then, all of a sudden, he had an idea. “Why don’t you come with me after all? We don’t have to fight the Fire Nation.” _Yet_ , he added silently in his head. “And Momo and I will have company.”

Momo was currently napping on Lee’s leg. Aang thought this helped make his point more convincing.

Lee looked at his sister. She looked back at him. Nobody said anything.

“How about this,” Ilah proposed, breaking the silence. “You have until we reach Whaletail Island to convince us to travel with you. We still have a delivery to make. After that, our schedules are open to... _reconsideration_.”

“Deal!” said Aang. They shook on it.

He could convince them, he just knew it. Most of the night was spent thinking up some really compelling arguments of why they should leave their boat for Appa. He was a much better form of transportation. He could fly over water _and_ land, for starters. And his fur was way softer than the sides of a metal ship.

Somewhere between the sixteenth and seventeenth reasons why they should come with him, Aang slipped into sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahhhh people don't hate it omg :DDDDD i'm so happy yall! thank you for the comments and the kudos and the bookmarks  
> thanks for joining me on this journey of moral and gymnastics that is the opening act. keeping character in-character while getting them where they need to go is such a delicate balancing act  
> also comedy!!!! i think this one is the funniest so far, esp as we venture away from necessary plot to fun character  
> SPEAKING OF PLOT, yes so far each chapter has been a bit of a 1:1 with in-show stuff. don't worry we're gonna start diverging here soon. soon as in next week. see you next monday :)


	5. Secrets and Stowaways

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> aka Mission Objective(s)
> 
> (cw: blood?)

Book 1: Air

Chapter 5: Secrets and Stowaways

They didn’t leave at dawn.

Suki of the Kyoshi Warriors wasn’t about to ask any of the three of them _why_. It wasn’t exactly her place to question the Avatar’s comings and goings. But his two travelling companions were another story entirely.

Ever since they had landed on the island following the Avatar, Suki had been suspicious of the pair of them. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but they were hiding something. She just knew it. The only question was how she was going to figure out exactly what that something was.

The people of the Earth Kingdom were nothing if not hospitable. Suki had invited the girl of the group to the Kyoshi Warriors’ training on those grounds, in the hopes that she would reveal something about her background. Dividing and conquering was a key strategy in warfare. Suki planned to utilize it here.

The girl had declined her offer. When they left, Suki would be unable to investigate the matter at all. At the end of the day, it may have been for the best. Questioning the Avatar’s friends was a low blow to his honor. It would be unbecoming of a Kyoshi Warrior to dishonor the memory of their founder by distrusting her current incarnation. So Suki woke the next day, ready to move on from her paranoia.

Nevertheless, when morning came to their dojo, there the girl was. She stood in the corner with arms crossed, a bored expression plastered across her face even thicker than the makeup Suki wore. The rest of the girls huddled together, muttering to one another and casting sideways glances at the intruder in their space.

Suki considered the situation for a moment. Then she made her way over to the gong at the front of the room. Picking up the mallet, she steeled herself to formally begin the day’s exercises.

She swung the mallet into the gong. It bounced off with a resounding boom.

Once everyone’s attention was on her, Suki bowed to her fellow Warriors. “Good morning,” she said. “Today we have a guest with us—” she gestured to the corner with the girl— “and please treat Ilah with all the respect she deserves as a  _ friend _ of the Avatar.”

The name sounded foreign to Suki, but she didn’t know how or why. Her suspicions flared to life once more, but Suki couldn’t worry about that now. She had a training session to lead. She flicked her fan open to begin.

At the end of the hour-long session, the Warriors dispersed amongst themselves. Suki allowed herself to look back at the corner. She was somewhat surprised to see that the girl was still there, though she had straightened her posture from where she had been leaning against the wall. She must be leaving soon.

Before she could, Suki decided to seize the opportunity to speak to her. She went to one of the wooden crates that surrounded the open floor and quickly rummaged through it. Picking out a folded green dress, she carried it over to where the girl was making her way towards the door.

“This is for you,” Suki said, thrusting the dress out in front of her. The girl looked at it strangely, then took it without a word.

With a bow, Suki added, “If you ever return to our island, you will be an honored guest of the Kyoshi Warriors.” Then she turned away, to finish the rest of her duties in the dojo.

By the time she was done, Suki worried that she may have been too late. She all but ran out the door and followed the fresh six-footed tracks down the path to the bay with the Unagi, the way the villagers had brought the Avatar into town. There, she saw the Avatar and his friends. The Avatar had his bison, and the other two were aboard a steel ship floating in the bay.

The Earth Kingdom navies had recently adopted steel ships, she knew. But they were a staple of the Fire Nation’s military as well.

Suki quickly crouched low to the ground and took shelter behind a rock, so as to remain unseen. Under her breath, she cursed her bright red-and-white makeup for being so distinct. At least she’d had the awareness to take off her shining golden headdress, an imitation of the one Kyoshi herself had worn. Now was not the time to show deference. It was the time to find answers.

As she watched, the bison took off into the air. Suki had to physically stop herself from gasping aloud at the sight. The bison stayed low to the surface of the waves, to keep close to the ship that was cutting through the water. It was daytime, but Suki still wondered if the Unagi was going to accost them as they crossed the bay. That thing was half the reason the Fire Nation hadn’t invaded yet. The other half was the diligence and vigilance of warriors like Suki.

Halfway across the water, the Unagi still hadn’t made a peep. Suki was about to turn back to the village and get on with her day when a flash of green caught her eye. In the distance, the girl unfolded the Warrior’s dress that Suki had given her as a gift. She stood there for some time, observing it at full length, then seized the dress by the waist. Her head turned back to the bay. To where Suki lay hidden.

Suki stayed completely still. Ducking lower to avoid her sight would only create movement and draw attention.

The girl must not have seen her. Her fist—the one clutching the dress—flared. The light faded, leaving behind a flickering orange. Black smoke rose from the burning dress. Now Suki really couldn’t keep herself from gasping.

It was Firebending.

* * *

It was, admittedly, Aang’s fault that they wound up leaving so late. But to be fair, he had had a very long few days before then. So when he had finally fallen unconscious in the early hours of the morning, he had wound up oversleeping for more than half a day, unable to be roused by anyone. His dreams were filled with the broken promises of friends, and men who were so old they forgot how long they’d lived.

In the end, it was his little lemur friend, Momo, that had woken him up. A chittering in his ears so near and so loud they sounded like the roaring of some great beast had launched him upward into a sitting position. Whirling his head to the source of the sound, he had seen that Momo was caught in the arms of Lee, who also looked startled himself. Aang had been about to tell him off for doing something so tormenting, but then he had noticed the sunlight streaming through the windows.

For a moment Aang panicked, thinking he had missed his chance to talk his maybe-friends into travelling with him. Then he realized that one of his maybe-friends was still in the room. They had waited for him.

This was going better than he’d hoped.

The two of them—three, counting Momo—had rushed out of the inn and found the other maybe-friend, the girl Ilah, walking down the main road of the village. She had held some green piece of cloth in her arms; Aang had soon recognized it as the dress that the one Kyoshi Warrior girl wore. Had she been invited to join their group?

As it had turned out, the girl wasn’t interested in any way whatsoever. Aang had guided Appa down to the beach where he had landed only yesterday, and departed alongside the little ship. The Firebender girl had incinerated the dress before they had even left the bay. That had been pretty rude—it was a gift.

To best keep pace with the ship, bound to the sea as it was, Appa flew very, very slowly. He wasn’t very fond of swimming in rougher waters like these, but he stayed close to the waves to keep level with the boat. Even then, he had to shout to be heard over the rushing of waves and the sputtering of the engine. The ocean at the South Pole had been downright  _ quiet _ compared to this crashing.

In the time it took for the island to fade from view completely, Aang had finalized his perfect strategy to talk his friends into coming with him. Cupping his hands over his mouth, Aang yelled, “Do I start convincing you now?”

The boy yelled back, “ _ What _ ?” It was so faint that Aang could barely make out just the one word.

He was about to shout the same question over again when he got a much better idea. Leaning over, he whispered his plan into Appa’s ear. The bison grunted, to confirm that he got the message. Aang retrieved his staff from where he had tied it to the saddle. Then he gave Momo a pat on the head and told him to  _ stay _ .

Aang struck the bottom end of his staff on the saddle, and it snapped open to reveal his glider. Catching the sea wind, Aang took off from the bison’s back and soared over to the ship where his two friends waited for him.

“Don’t worry,” said Aang as soon as he touched down on the ship’s metal deck, “he won’t go far.” Appa was going to trail behind the ship in the air at his own pace, like they’d agreed. That meant that Aang could be on the boat with the others and talk to them at a reasonable volume.

The girl kept her eye on Appa anyways. “I wasn’t worried,” she said. Her voice was flat, and the way she was watching the bison seemed suspicious to Aang.

Well, now was as good a time as any to start talking them into travelling with him. “So,” Aang started, just like he had practiced, “Lee and Ilah—”

Ilah raised a hand to stop him. Aang hadn’t practiced for this in his convincing process. “If you’re going to try to persuade us into abandoning our post,” she said, “we should probably be as honest with you as we can.”

Aang was confused. “What do you mean?” he asked.

“Our names,” said Ilah, “the ones we gave on Kyoshi? Those aren’t our real names.”

“What?” Aang said, louder than he’d intended. “You were lying about that, too?”

Not-Lee nodded. “Our actual names are  _ very _ Fire Nation. So is our family,” he explained.

The Air Nomads didn’t care about familial ties. Elders were the elders of  _ everyone _ , not just their own children. Aang was well aware that most people from the other nations put a lot of stock into who a person’s parents were. And all the other kinds of family members a person could have. It would make sense that these Fire Nation people would care about their family like that.

Not-Lee went on, “And if the people on Kyoshi Island found out about our heritage…” The maybe-real Unagi threat went unspoken. “That’s why we lied to you.”

Aang took a deep breath. Forgiving people could be  _ hard _ . Even when they had good reasons.

But he did it anyways. “So what  _ are _ your names?” he asked. “The real ones please, this time.”

They looked at each other for a long minute. Finally, the girl spoke. She stuck out her hand—Aang wasn’t sure whether he was actually supposed to take it, or if it was only for dramatic effect—and said, “My name is Princess Azula, trueborn daughter of Fire Lord Ozai and the Lady Ursa. My idiot brother over here is Prince Zuko, trueborn and eldest son of the same lovely parents.”

After a beat, she added, “While legally speaking, he should be the _Crown_ Prince right about now, whether or not he still actually retains the title is up for debate. We haven’t been to family dinner in an awfully long time.”

* * *

They reached some island beneath the Southern Earth Kingdom in the middle of the afternoon. At first, Katara wasn’t entirely sure why they had stopped there. When she asked Sokka, all he told her was, “We forgot the salt,” before climbing over the side to drop down onto the sand below.

Of course he’d forgotten  _ something. _ Entirely unsurprised, Katara followed along anyways.

As soon as her feet squished into the sand, she realized that this was the first time she had ever left the South Pole. There, everything was ice, or snow, or frigid seawater. Not having something bendable beneath her feet was a strange and foreign sensation. She feared the feeling would get worse as she headed farther inland, away from the bay.

Sokka seemed to handle it just fine. Then again, he wasn’t a bender at all. Katara didn’t want to seem weak in his eyes by being away from the ocean, so she gritted her teeth and toughed it out. They crested the hill on the shore, and saw the village ahead.

Everything was made of wood. They hardly had enough driftwood for spear handles at the South Pole. Here, it was plentiful enough for them to use it as walls, doors, roofs. The giant statue in the center of the main path through the village was carved entirely of the stuff. It was amazing.

Katara saw that the villagers patted the base of the great wooden statue nearly every time they passed it. Some of the villagers wore green, but others wore blues just like the ones she was wearing. It was nice, feeling a sense of community so far from home.

Neither she nor Sokka touched the statue themselves, though. Katara only followed her brother as he made his way to a stall. She let him do the talking, too, as she had no idea how much salt they would need, or how much it would cost them. Or if Water Tribe money would be good here, even with the matching clothes.

Sokka was definitely the better bargainer of the two. Master Hama had said that Katara couldn’t talk her way out of an open-faced canoe. She was lucky to be such a talented Bender.

In the middle of the transaction with the shopkeeper, Sokka asked, “What’s the deal with the statue?” He stuck his thumb back over his shoulder in its direction.

Beaming, the shopkeeper replied, “The Avatar blessed us with a visit only yesterday. It’s a new day for the world!” Then she offered them the salt at a price that even Katara knew had to be heavily discounted.

The Avatar? Gran Gran had told her stories about the person who was supposed to bring balance to the world. But that had been a long, long time ago. Now Katara knew that in order to bring balance, she had to fight for it herself with tooth and nail. If the Avatar really  _ was _ out there now, hopefully they would end the war and get revenge for everyone the Fire Nation had taken from the world.

For now, Sokka and Katara had to focus on their own mission, to get to their father. They had no reason to stay longer in the village, so each of them took a bag and started to make the walk back to the boat. Sokka was a lot stronger than Katara, so he travelled a lot faster. She had to shout for him to wait up before he slowed to match her wobbling pace. If only she could have bent the salt inside. Katara remembered hearing once that salt was just a different kind of rock, meaning an Earthbender could probably move it.

Not her, though. She was stuck lugging the bag all the way to the side of the boat. Looking up, she knew there was no way in the world that she would be able to lift it over the side and onto the deck. Sokka dropped his bag and climbed up to the ship himself. Then he leaned far over the railing with outstretched arms.

They were able to get the salt into the ship that way, with Katara passing the bags to Sokka, and him hauling them over the rail. Her own arms trembling from the effort, Katara reached up for him to pull her on board too. Sokka took a moment to laugh at her—rude—then grabbed her hand and pulled.

After Sokka re-tied the ropes and fixed the sail, Katara pulled the bay’s water up to surround the boat and guide it back to sea. Once again, they were underway. 

* * *

Hearing Zuko’s own name spoken aloud always twisted something in his gut. It was a confusing feeling, part longing, part fear, and part tiredness. Wearing someone else’s name was exhausting, especially when it was for years on end.

Azula hadn’t gotten their introductions and titles exactly right, though. At least so far as he remembered them. Probably a side effect of the years-on-end of aliases.

Zuko reminded his sister, “We might not even be Fire Prince and Princess anymore at this point.”

The Airbender Avatar, Aang, stared at the two of them with wide eyes. Zuko didn’t blame him for his hesitation—it was a lot to take in at once. It was a lot for Zuko to  _ admit _ at once, and they were some of the core truths of his own life.

Finally, Aang spoke. “Why don’t you know?” he asked. Then, “How does someone even  _ stop _ being a Prince? Or a Princess.”

“You get disowned by the man wearing the crown,” said Azula. She was talking about Father, her tone revealing that it was still deeply personal, even after all this time.

Aang reiterated, “But you don’t  _ know _ whether or not you were?”

“No,” snapped Zuko.

The boy raised his hands defensively. Then he asked, “Why not?”

He didn’t know when to quit, did he.

As Zuko’s clenched fists grew warmer, Azula, smooth as ever, answered. Enigmatic as ever, her answer took the form of an allegory. “Deserters don’t return to their commanding officer to ask if their discharge paperwork has gone through.”

Zuko didn’t have to remind her that only one person had ever deserted the Fire Nation military and lived to tell the tale.

It took Aang a long minute to understand. His eyes betrayed every one of his emotions. Azula had often mocked Zuko for how easily he could be read. Compared to this kid, Zuko felt he must be as expressive as a brick wall.

Voice touched with hesitation, Aang asked, “Did you two… run away?”

Now it was Azula’s turn to glower. Zuko knew it was still a touchy subject, five years on. He answered for her this time, giving a brief nod as the fire in his fists faded away.

“Me, too,” confided the boy in a whisper, like they were part of some sort of grand conspiracy together.

Zuko didn’t entirely care for the answer to his next question, but Azula could probably use a little extra time to simmer. “Why did you run away?” he asked.

Aang scuffed at the metal deck with his foot. The shoe skidded on the surface with a squeak. “I didn’t want to be the Avatar,” he confessed, “and the monks were going to make me leave all my friends at the Southern Air Temple.”

He kept his eyes on the ground as he continued, “I didn’t mean to be gone for a hundred years. I was only going to…” He trailed off into silence.

His wide eyes trained on Zuko, and his tone brightened considerably. “Did you guys run away for the same reason as me? Because you didn’t want to be Princes anymore? And Princesses,” he added with a glance in Azula’s direction.

Okay, Azula was going to need a  _ lot _ more time after this.

“No, we didn’t,” said Zuko, and left it at that.

At least, he  _ tried  _ to. Still obviously searching for answers, Aang proposed, “Maybe it was because you found out about all the bad things the Fire Nation did? Like what had happened to… to the Airbenders.”

They had known what had happened to the Airbenders since they were six. Sozin’s opening strike of the war was the singularly most-covered event in Fire Nation history curriculums. Zuko wasn’t going to  _ tell _ him that, though. He may be dumb, according to Azula, but he wasn’t suicidal. He wasn’t about to do anything that ran a risk of repeating the events at the Southern Air Temple.

Aang paused, deep in thought. “But you still worked for the Fire Nation…” he mused. Then the conspiratorial gleam in his eye was back. “You guys ran away to see for yourselves just how evil the Fire Nation was. You’ll probably go back when you’re ready. To help fix things,” he decided.

Closer to the truth than Zuko would have imagined for a second guess. Although  _ evil  _ was a very strong word to use. “Something like that,” he agreed.

“That’s why you only moved stuff around for people, instead of actually fighting,” Aang reasoned.

Getting colder. Zuko didn’t say anything to correct him there, either.

Aang must have taken the silence as confirmation, because his face stretched into a wan smile. “As the Avatar, I should probably start fixing the war, too.”

He held out a hand. “Can you guys help me? Stop the war, and bring balance back? You guys would be a huge help, since you’re Fire Nation, and the war’s Fire Nation. And since you guys are Princes—and Princesses—I bet it would be easy for you to change the Fire Lord’s mind.”

Now he was positively frigid.

“We never agreed to betray our country,” Azula snapped, coming out of her silence. “We agreed to  _ consider _ travelling with you as neutral parties, not fighting our homeland. And not to mention,” she added, “the Fire Nation is  _ winning _ .” Zuko couldn’t help but notice the smug pride woven into her voice.

“Well,” Aang said slowly, “why are you guys fighting the war in the first place?”

If the defeat of the Airbenders was the most-taught event in schools, then the philosophy of the war itself was a close second. “To spread the glory of the Fire Nation to distant shores, uniting the world in peace, freedom, justice, and security,” Zuko recited from memory.

Aang then asked, “How can you spread peace through a  _ war _ ?”

Azula replied, “Because the Fire Nation is the superior culture, saving the savages of the world from their own self-destruction.” There was no emotion in the statement, said in the cadence of another Fire Nation text. Perfectly memorized since childhood.

“They didn’t  _ save _ my people,” Aang said. “They’re all  _ dead _ at the hands of the Fire Nation.”

He had a point there.

But mere emotions would never convince Azula, even if Zuko felt a tugging at his own heartstrings.

When Zuko looked at his sister, he was surprised to see the sliver of doubt hidden in Azula’s expression. No one else would have been able to notice such a tiny fraction of emotion. Typically, she refused to let anything show without carefully and deliberately allowing it to. Only Zuko, the person who had grown up by her side for five years, knew exactly what the slip-up meant.

There was a chance.

She repeated stubbornly, “We’re  _ winning _ . I’m not defecting to the losing side just because of a century-old sob story.”

Stubbornness was Zuko’s area of expertise. He knew how to navigate these waters. Delicately, through subtle redirection. “We don’t have to… go against the Fire Nation,” he told his sister, deliberately avoiding the word  _ traitor, betray _ , or any synonymous terms. “But hear me out: we can go with Aang, and leave Zhao, without outright fighting  _ against  _ our country.”

Azula scoffed, “No, we can’t. Not with the  _ Avatar _ .”

That wasn’t the angle Zuko was going for. The hook he had tried to sink was the thought of leaving Zhao. They’d only ever stayed with him out of a sense of obligation that had long since gone stale. Now an opportunity to leave erupts from the ocean before them. They shouldn’t give it up so quickly because of some potential wanted poster. They should be used to  _ that _ by now.

“Let’s sleep on it,” he proposed. The sun was crawling down the horizon, and Azula would be at her most agreeable in the morning. They may not even reach Whaletail until then.

“Okay,” Aang agreed with a hopeful grin, slamming his staff on the ground to unfold the glider within. Grabbing onto the wooden frame, he leapt into the air and took to the skies, soaring back to his bison.

For just a moment, Zuko wished that Firebenders could fly like that.

Azula didn’t say anything. That was probably the best outcome he could have hoped for. It meant she was still busy mulling it over in her head. Speaking would mean she had made her decision, and Zuko had yet to see Azula go back on one of her decisions.

All his sister did was stalk to her sleeping quarters in silence. Zuko watched her go, then realized that it meant he would be the one on first shift tonight, to keep their boat on its course. Maybe that had been her plan all along.

* * *

The full moon always looked so beautiful shining off the ice. Now it looked even more radiant, reflected on the sea. After the rougher waves of the daytime, no wind blew in this cloudless, darkened sky, leaving the water perfectly and pristinely still. Katara had never felt so at home as she did now, even when sailing away from her childhood.

She gazed at the moon below her, then the moon above. Then she turned her feet and settled into her Waterbending stance. Left hand stretched out towards the horizon, right hand tucked closer to her center. Master Hama had said that a bender was strongest not just when her element was most present, but when she felt most connected to her element. If that was the case, Katara felt the strongest she’d ever been.

Sokka was sitting at the back of the skiff, carving at some piece of driftwood with his whalebone knife. Katara knew he wasn’t a bender, but some part of her wondered whether he felt connected to the moon and the ocean all the same. Maybe that was why he still was out on the deck instead of sleeping below.

Katara breathed deeply, in and out. Then she did so again, raising and lowering her hands with her breath. The third time, she reached out to the water, and connected. Ripples circled out from a point in the sea, and a small stream of water began to rise and fall, in perfect time with her breathing. She pulled the water towards and around her, creating a ring that spun faster, faster. When she felt it was fast enough, she severed the ring at her side. The free end snapped forward, making an audible  _ crack! _ in the air. Behind her, Sokka flinched at the sudden sound. The Water Whip.

She moved to the next form. Her feet shifted closer together, and her hands began to push forward, pull back. The ocean rose again, and followed the motion of her hands. Katara finished the form with a step forward, and a final push. The wave sped away from the bow, leaving a trail of bubbles in its wake.

The other basic forms passed in similar fashion. While she knew that some of her skill in this moment came from the full moon, she believed her training was paying off. She missed Master Hama.

Next was practicing with ice. Katara reached, and pulled a small orb of water from the sea, no bigger than her fist. She brought it between her palms, and focused. The water stilled, then hardened into a ball of frosted spikes. She melted and re-froze it several times, each crystal a unique shape, before returning the water to the sea.

Back at the South Pole, other more complex forms would include Snow Surfing and Frost Fishing. Unfortunately, her current location on the ocean meant that these would be difficult, if not impossible. She could always try Sea Surfing, but getting hauled out of the water after falling in was always embarrassing. And with Sokka’s whittling project, he may not even know she’d gone overboard until she was halfway to the seafloor.

Instead, she shifted back to her original stance, breathed, and reached. She felt the miles of open ocean in front of her, the moon above her, and something in between. Another deep breath, focus channeled, and  _ reach _ . Katara reached, felt, connected.

Her arms began to move, lifting so they pointed to her connection in the sky. It was too far away to be seen, but she knew it was there. Now, she grabbed. Her arms circled above her head to point back towards the stern of the skiff. A moment passed, and the connection followed her. A blur fell, no, was  _ pulled _ from the sky. Just a heartbeat before crashing into the deck, the seabird stopped—fixed in place by Katara’s Bloodbending.

If only Master Hama was there. She would have been proud.

Sokka looked up from his whittling. “You know I hate watching you do that,” he sighed. Still, he set his driftwood aside, seized the seabird around the neck, and went to work with the knife. They were lucky they had salt now, to keep the meat fresh.

Katara took a moment to breathe before letting go. In that breath, she felt her connection to the moon and the ocean and the moon within the ocean. She also felt something strange below the deck of the skiff. Waiting a moment, she breathed again, and felt the something again.

“Did the boat spring a leak?” she asked Sokka, who was crouched over his work.

This time, he didn’t even look up to speak to her. “I sure hope not.”

Katara made her way to the ladder. At the top of the hole in the deck, she stopped and reached one final time. She felt the moon, she felt the ocean, and she felt the something all as three distinct feelings. At least the hull was intact.

So what was belowdecks?

Once again, Katara reached and felt. She connected.

“Sokka?” Her voice pitched high enough to get him to look up from the seabird. “There’s someone down there.”

* * *

Firebenders usually meditated with their eyes closed.

Just like how royalty usually stayed home instead of running away and getting conscripted into their own Navy.

Zuko did—and had done—neither of those things. The latter was due to a long, complicated series of choices and events that had happened years ago. The former was due to Azula being asleep. Probably asleep. Either way, someone had to keep an eye on their heading.

The flame on the small wax candle bobbed and dipped, as much from Zuko’s breathing as from the motion of the waves below them. Zuko had folded his legs into the lotus position, perched on a shelf of metal on the bridge. The candle balanced on top of the pilot’s console, directly between Zuko and the horizon. Ruining his night vision, but the full moon above lit their surroundings well enough.

Zuko breathed in, and out, eyes on the candle. The candle breathed with him.

If he concentrated hard enough, he could sense the low embers of the coal engine below. Azula could have probably done it without even trying.

But Zuko was busy splitting his focus between his candle and the horizon. They were travelling slowly, he knew, but Whaletail Island was close. As the night progressed, he knew with increasing certainty that they would encounter the island well before the sun rose in the morning.

Hopefully he could get in a good half hour of meditation before having to make some big decisions.

It wound up being closer to an hour in total before he spotted an outcropping in the distant ocean. He didn’t have any maps nearby, but the stars above told him that their bearing was true. Whaletail Island lay ahead.

Zuko unfolded his legs, reached over, and pinched his flame out with his fingers. Then he would have to stop the boat. And wake his sister.

He decided to stop the boat first.

Stopping a boat on the open water wasn’t as literal as it sounded. There were currents, and winds, and the boat’s own momentum to keep it drifting forward even after the engines were cut. If he really wanted the boat to stop moving entirely, he would have to run the engines in reverse for a time.

When he reached the engine room, Zuko decided that he would only cut it. They were far enough from shore to have to worry about a slight drifting. He pulled the right levers and shut the right valves, and the engine’s groaning grew softer, fading into silence.

The bison was behind them. It should hopefully notice the change and stop too. Zuko wasn’t going to go back up to the deck to make sure just yet. His sister was down here, sleeping in her bunk.

Steeling himself with a breath, Zuko opened the metal door. It creaked.

Her eyes fluttered open instantly.

Had she even been asleep at all? Zuko didn’t bother to ask. All he said to her was, “We’re here.”

Azula raised an eyebrow, but didn’t move.

Zuko sighed. “We’re off the coast,” he elaborated. Then he turned to make his way to deck. He didn’t look back to see if Azula had followed.

A little Airbender boy greeted him on deck. “I saw you slowed down,” he said. “Does that mean you’re considering it?”

“Considering what?” asked Zuko.

“Coming with me,” Aang said, “and stopping the Fire Nation.”

Zuko looked at him for a long moment. Behind him, his bison floated in the still waters. The deck swayed beneath their feet, ever so gently as the boat slowed.

Finally, he asked, “Where are you going first?”

“What?” asked Aang, his smile faltering.

“Will you be going to the Hu Xin provinces?” asked Zuko. “Are you going to liberate Yu Dao? Confront the army over contested territory? Or will you be going straight to the home islands?”

Aang stammered. “I—I don’t—”

Zuko continued. “Of course, with air power like yours,” he mused, thinking back to the bison, “you could land in the Royal Palace next week and put a stop to the whole matter from the top.”

Admittedly, it did feel a little mean, to be picking on the kid like this. But for years and years, Azula had been the one playing similar games with him. Dismantling every doubt in his head, every hesitation in his heart, piece by piece. He couldn’t deny the vindication he felt as he finally felt  _ smarter _ . 

Maybe he had been a little distracted during his meditation coming up with that brief little monologue of his.

The boy’s eyes stayed as wide as ever, but the emotion behind them shifted. “I wasn’t really thinking about that,” he said, in a very small voice. “Since I’m the Avatar, I should probably learn the other elements first. Or something like that.”

Zuko looked at him over crossed arms, and said nothing.

Neither did the Avatar.

Some instinct told Zuko that someone was staring at his back. He turned his head, and there was Azula, leaning up against the bridge.

“How long have you been here?” he asked.

“Long enough,” she answered.

She turned to Aang. “I have to say, Avatar, you’re not really inspiring confidence that you have what it takes to defeat the Fire Nation. Or the Fire Lord.”

She didn’t call him  _ Father _ .

She never did.

Aang’s brow furrowed, dragging the point of his arrow along with it. “Then what do  _ you _ think I should do?” he said in a voice tinted with anger.

Azula raised a single eyebrow. “What  _ I _ would do,” she said slowly, “if I were the one going against my homeland—which I, in all likelihood,  _ won’t _ — but if I did...” She blinked.

Normally Zuko was the one who stumbled over his words like that.

His sister took a breath, and started again. “The best way to make something collapse is to destroy it from the inside out,” she said.

“I don’t get it,” said Aang. Neither did Zuko.

Azula sighed. “The Fire Nation is a military state,” she said. “To defeat the Fire Nation, you defeat the military.”

Zuko was even more confused now. “Isn’t that the whole idea?” he said, “to defeat the Fire Nation military?”

“What I’m  _ saying _ , brother,” she said sharply, twisting her head to face him, “is that our _ friend’ _ s best shot is by getting an in with the friendliest faction of the military he can find.”

“Oh,” said Aang, “I get it now.” Then his face screwed up in confusion. “But who’s the friendliest guy in the Fire Nation military?”

Zuko and Azula shared a knowing look.

“Uncle Iroh,” they said in perfect unison.

“Who?” asked Aang.

“General Iroh,” said Azula, with a hint of disdain.

“The Dragon of the West,” said Zuko, with awe in his voice.

“He’s practically retired now,” Azula finished.

Aang asked, “What do you mean,  _ practically _ retired? Is he, or isn’t he?”

“Rumor has it,” Azula explained, “he’s commanding some pile of rocks. The farthest island from the capital you can reach without hitting the Earth Kingdom.”

“But he’s still in the military?” Aang asked. “And he’s friendly?”

“Yes,” Zuko confirmed.

Azula scoffed. “His friendliness depends on how much you like dolls,” she remarked. It took Zuko a minute to remember what she was talking about.

That was the last time they had heard from him, actually. Zuko had gotten a knife as a gift, a carved ivory blade that had remained behind when they left the capital caldera. Uncle hadn’t made it back from the front yet. They hadn’t seen each other in a very, very long time. Maybe it was time they owed him a visit. Hopefully his jovial demeanor hadn’t changed too much, despite all that had happened. To all of them.

Aang broke into a wide grin. “He sounds perfect!” he said. “So where are we going?”

“We?” asked Azula. 

Zuko didn’t say anything. Instead he watched the island creeping closer from across the waves.

“Well, yeah,” said Aang, “you guys can introduce me to him.”

Azula started, “We’re not—”

“—we could—” Zuko suggested.

The two of them locked eyes. An entire unspoken conversation passed between them in the span of seconds. Azula was usually the one to come out on top of a silent battle of wills. But Zuko had a single advantage over her this time: he knew how  _ bored  _ Azula could get. It was why every single one of their supply runs over the past six months had gone on a detour to somewhere  _ she _ had chosen.

How much longer did she want to spend taking someone else’s orders?

“Fine,” Azula conceded, breaking the stare, “let’s go run off with the world’s most wanted individual and see how long it takes us to get killed. Or worse, captured.”

“That’s the spirit,” Aang cheered. He reached over to punch her on the arm. It was probably meant to be a friendly gesture.

A single glare was all it took to freeze his fist in midair. “We’re only going to visit Uncle Iroh,” she said icily. “No treason, no sabotaging the war effort. Understood?”

Aang nodded once. He looked over the water, to where his bison floated on the ocean. “You should probably come with me on Appa,” he advised. “He’s a lot faster in the air, you know.”

Zuko looked down at the boat beneath his feet. He wondered if they should just abandon it in the ocean. The story would probably wind up being that they were swept overboard in some Southern storm, never to be seen again. Tragic.

As if she were reading his mind, Azula said, “Until we get on that bison, we’re loyal servants to Zhao.” Zuko seriously doubted that, but he let her continue. She flashed a wicked grin before finishing, “And we have a delivery to make.”

“What do you—” said Zuko, before everything clicked into place.

Azula sure did love her theatrics. Mom would have been proud.

“In for a spark, in for the inferno,” she said, making her way to the engine room. “Let’s just do this and get on the bison before I come to my senses and recover from this terrible lapse in judgement.”

Zuko went to go collect his things before they caught fire.

* * *

The stowaway didn’t try to fight them after being exposed. That was good—Katara had never tried to Bloodbend a person before. Animals were one thing, but  _ people _ were entirely different. Her misgivings about Bloodbending directly didn’t stop her from staying on high alert. Even without seizing the stowaway outright, she could still feel every single muscle as they climbed the ladder out of the hatch. If they did try something, she would be ready.

Most of Sokka’s weapons were stored belowdecks, so they were out of his reach. All he had on him was the bloody whalebone knife, which he held in a defensive grip. Hopefully the blood would be intimidating enough to make up for the fact that it was tiny. Abandoning the bird for the moment, he moved to stand in a position where the stowaway’s back would be exposed and vulnerable as they climbed the ladder. Katara moved beside him, to stay out of the stowaway’s line of sight as well

The first thing Katara saw was the stowaway’s hair. It was cropped just above shoulder length, but not in any Water Tribe fashion that she knew of. By the way the stowaway nimbly climbed onto the deck, Katara knew that they were strong.

Once they reached the deck, the stowaway twisted around and sat on the edge of the deck, legs trailing down the hatch from where they had come. The moonlight illuminated their face, and Katara realized that their stowaway was a _ girl _ . She looked at them with cool eyes. Her heartbeat was steady and slow. Unafraid.

Sokka brandished the bloody knife. “Who are you, and what are you doing here?” he asked in a low voice.

The girl stowaway’s tone was just as smooth when she answered, “My name is Suki, and I’m looking for the Avatar.”

This was the second time Katara had heard someone mention the Avatar today. Connecting the two, she said, “You’re from that island. The one with the wooden houses, and the statue. Where we got the salt.”

Sokka turned to look at her, but Katara ignored him. Her own eyes stayed fixed on the stowaway Suki as she responded, “Yes, Kyoshi Island is my home. The Avatar was there. He left a few hours before your boat arrived.”

“So why are you looking for him now?” asked Sokka.

Now this Suki’s eyes hardened. “I have reason to believe he’s been travelling with the Fire Nation.”

Katara couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She repeated hollowly, “He’s with the Fire Nation?”

“They hid it while they stayed at the village,” Suki said, “but I caught one of them Firebending as they were leaving. The Avatar had called them his  _ friends _ .”

Sokka’s right hand, the one holding the whalebone knife, slowly lowered. “What were their names?” he asked.

“I doubt they gave us their real names,” Suki guessed. “But they called themselves Lee and Ilah.” Her eyes stared into the distance. “Come to think of it,” she realized, “I’ve never heard of the name Ilah in the Earth Kingdom before. Lee—yes, there’s a million Lees—but never an Ilah.”

Sokka narrowed his eyes. “So why are you on our boat? Why didn’t the men from your village—the warriors—go on this hunt for the Avatar?” 

“I  _ am _ one of the warriors from my village,” Suki snapped.

“Wait a minute,” Sokka said, raising a hand, “ _ you’re _ a warrior? But you’re a—”

“A girl?” Moonlight shined off Suki’s narrowed eyes. “I’m a girl, and I’m a warrior. A Kyoshi Warrior. Got a problem with it?”

“I… don’t know,” Sokka admitted. Katara didn’t miss how he threw a glance in her direction. Thanks to Master Hama’s training, Katara was pretty confident that she could take her brother in a fight. She’d come close to it on occasion, too, back home. How surprising could it be to Sokka that multiple girls existed in the world that could beat him up?

Sokka turned back to the stowaway. “So why are you alone? Where are the rest of your girl-y warriors?”

“There wasn’t time,” Suki sighed.

Katara asked, “Why not?”

Suki said, “I was the only one to catch them Firebending. It was from pretty far away, and the sunlight was shining off the water, and…” Her voice trailed off, before picking up again. “I know what I saw. But the elder of my village said we have to trust the Avatar.”

Sokka prompted, “...And?”

“And,” Suki continued, “I was ready to accept it, and move on. Then your boat showed up in the bay, and  _ no one _ comes to Kyoshi Island, not with the Unagi, it was a sign and I  _ knew _ I had to take it—”

Suki’s muscles were all tense, her heart practically jumping from her chest with every beat. With a single calming breath, the physical stress response began to fade. “There wasn’t time to tell the girls—” she glared at Sokka— ”the other  _ warriors _ . I… I left them behind. I had to take the opportunity.”

“On our boat,” Sokka clarified.

“Yes.”

“And if the Avatar really is working with the Fire Nation, and you confront him?”

Suki’s jaw set, and Katara had no trouble believing she was a warrior. Dad had looked the same way, before he left. “It’s a risk I’m willing to take.”

Before she could say anything to that end, Sokka spoke first. “I respect your bravery,” he said, “but Katara and I have a mission of our own. We’ll drop you off at the next port. You can go your way, and we can go ours.”

Katara took her eyes off of Suki for the first time to look at her brother. She told him, “We can look for two people at once, you know.”

The three of them on this boat may be the only people who knew the Avatar’s secret. They had to do something about it. They owed the world that much.

Sokka raised his brows. An unspoken exchange passed between the two of them. Then, he relented. “Fine. If you want to travel with us, I guess you’re welcome to it. You’ll be faster traveling on the water than by land, anyways.”

Finally, the knife fell all the way to his side. “We’ve got plenty of salt to go around,” he added, “and breakfast is over there.” He threw a thumb over his shoulder to point back at the half-butchered seabird.

Under the light of the sun, Katara suspected that Suki’s face may have turned some shade of green. As it was, her stomach still churned in a way that made even Katara uncomfortable. Suki didn’t let it show, however. She only bowed to the both of them and said, “Thank you for your generosity.”

With their confrontation over and done with, Sokka went back to the bird. He only cast a single glance over his shoulder at their stowaway-turned-impromptu-travelling-companion. Katara decided to take that as a good sign. She would have to ask him to save one of the feathers.

For now, she moved to sit beside Suki, who shivered. “I really hope you’re wrong about him. The Avatar,” she said.

Suki sighed. “Me too.”

* * *

Zhao disliked unexpected news. He also disliked Whaletail Island as a whole. So when some petty Whaletail officer came to him unexpectedly, just an hour after dawn, his mood was considerably soured.

“What?” he snapped.

The petty officer blinked. “Sir,” he started, “you’re going to want to take a look at this.”

Zhao glared at the officer. Who swallowed, but didn’t retract his statement. This must have been rather serious, then. Serious matters usually meant paperwork. Zhao disliked paperwork, too. Such was the life of a higher-up in the greatest military in the world—nine parts pointless paperwork to one part conquering.

The petty officer led Zhao down to the port entrance of the complex, and out of the threshold. Maybe Zhao should make  _ him  _ do the paperwork for this, since he was the one to bring it to his attention. Zhao entertained this thought all the way past the wharf and some distance down the beach of Whaletail Island, There, they came upon an unmanned skeleton of a ship, her steel hull blackened with char.

“What is this?” he asked the petty officer.

Even though the question was redundant—Zhao had a working pair of eyes, after all—the petty officer responded. “The ship appears to have been abandoned, sir, after the crew sabotaged it.” All painfully obvious. “We also retrieved this from on deck,” the officer added, pulling a crumpled sheet of parchment from his belt and handing it to Zhao.

Unfolding the paper was something Zhao shouldn’t have had to do himself. What else were petty officers for, if not petty tasks such as this? He was already too cross to admonish him, though. Once he read the words on the parchment, written in a too-familiar hand, the petty officer vanished from his mind completely.

Two words, written in calligraphy fit for royalty:  _ We quit. _

Clenching his fist, the paper burst into flames. Zhao had to get off this spirits-forsaken island before it killed him outright. His only solace was that he certainly wasn’t going to do the paperwork to document the identities of the deserters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> instead of paring down this massive 8k beast of a chapter, i instead added MORE words to squeeze in a star wars episode III reference. priorities :))  
> competent katara only has one destiny under Master Hama: [bloodbending](https://infiniteriver.tumblr.com/post/645119297353629696/how-to-build-your-own-bloodbending-prot%C3%A9g%C3%A9). because any ounce of moral grey is an instant excuse to throw in bloodbending that sht's dope as hell don't even try to tell me otherwise  
> suki's character is a beast since she doesn't really have an arc in canon besides Be Awesome And Confident, but i'm throwing her in the story for a couple of reasons: 1) i need a watson for the WT gang 2) three's a more fun dynamic to work with 3) i love suki so much  
> yay our characters finally have their goals set out, sort of. azula's still got some nudging to go. and by nudging i mean SHOVING her in the right direction  
> i WILL be referring to WT gang as the Blue Eye Group in the notes from here on out. no idea what to do for the modified Gaang tho. maybe throw a suggestion at the tumblr, if you so choose. link's above with the bloodbending thing i worked hard on that ok show it some love  
> anyways next week's looking to be a long boy too, so have fun with that. see you next monday :)

**Author's Note:**

> i've been so hyped for this story for a long time and now it's finally at a point where i feel ready to post it out in the wider world :)  
> basic rundown is 4 books, 12 chapters each, plus an inevitable epilogue makes 49 chapters. this puppy is PLANNED. OUT.  
> i'm publishing the first three chapters in a batch, so if you can't see chapter 2 yet don't worry it'll be out as soon as i figure out the programming on this site lol. By tuesday night at the latest for sure i promise babes  
> Zuko doesn't have a scar btw. it's kinda tricky to emphasize that in in-character, so i hope that the "five years gone" thing makes it obvs. its so weird i can barely picture his baby smooth face in my head yknow.


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